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BACON.  BARO  DE  ^ 

VI  LUMEN  TACUNDLE  LEX 

SIC  SEDEBAT 


THE 


AUTHOKSHIP  OP  SHAKESPEAKE. 


BY 

NATHANIEL   HOLMES. 


Td  yup  avTO  voelv  eoriv  re  /mm  eivai.  — Parmenides. 


NEW  YORK: 
PUBLISHED  BY  HURD  AND   HOUGHTON, 

459  Broome  Street. 

1866. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1866,  by 

Hurd  and  Houghton, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of 

New  York. 


RIVERSIDE,    CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED    AND    PRINTED    BY 

H.    0.    HOUGHTON  AND   COMPANY. 


TO  HIS  EXCELLENCY 

THE  HONORABLE  THOMAS  C.  FLETCHER, 

GOVERNOR  OF  THE   STATE  OF  MISSOURI, 

AS  A  WORTHY  REPRESENTATIVE 

OF  THE  CIVIL  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  OF  THE  AGE, 

WHEREIN  THE  ARTS  AND  SCIENCES, 

PHILOSOPHY,  AND  RELIGIOUS  CULTURE, 

ARE  TO  FIND  FREE  COURSE  AND  BE  GLORIFIED, 

THIS  HUMBLE  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  TIME 

IS  RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED  BY 

THE  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 


In  these  days,  perhaps,  there  needs  be  no  apology 
for  writing  a  book.  But  a  book  without  a  preface, 
like  a  dinner  without  a  grace,  would  seem  to  be  un- 
civil. Let  us  have,  at  least,  "  so  much  as  will  serve 
to  be  prologue  to  an  egg  and  butter."  This  book 
must  speak  for  itself :  I  did  not  see  any  good  reason 
why  it  should  not  be  printed.  It  may  be,  that  the 
belles-letters  critics  will  think  little  of  it,  or  the  trade 
still  less,  or  the  fixed  orthodoxies,  that  it  ought  never 
to  have  been  written  at  all,  or  the  philosophers,  that 
it  is  no  great  affair  at  best.  But  inasmuch  as  thought 
and  knowledge  among  men  lie  stratified,  as  it  were, 
like  the  densities  of  the  ocean,  or  the  air,  in  grada- 
tions infinite  between  the  lower  deeps  and  the  higher 
realms,  this  book,  like  any  other  that  is  thrown  into 
the  flowing  sea  of  things,  may  find  its  own  level 
and  so  float  somewhere  ;  howsoever  that  level  should 
come  near  to  measuring  the  weight  of  book,  writer, 
and  reader.  It  does  not  presume  to  contain  anything 
that  is  positively  new,  or  that  was  unknown  before  : 
it  claims  only  to  state  things  in  its  own  way.  I  have 
sometimes  thought  I  had  hit  upon  a  new  idea,  or 
discovered  a  new  fact,  but  I  was  pretty  sure  to  find 
the  same  thing  stated,  or  glanced  at,  in  a  week  or 
so,  in  some  newspaper,  or  in  some  book,  new  or 
old,  and  for  that  matter  (it  might  be)  as  old  as  the 


vi  PREFACE. 

hieroglyphics.  If  some  things  in  this  book  should 
be  new  to  some  readers,  they  will  bear  in  mind  the 
saying  of  Plato,  that  "  what  is  strange  is  the  result 
of  ignorance  in  the  case  of  all "  ;  and  if,  to  others, 
some  things  should  appear  to  be  either  not  new,  or, 
if  new,  not  true,  they  will,  of  course,  exercise  the 
common  privilege  and  judge  for  themselves. 

Doubtless  there  have  been  many  who  could  never 
rest  satisfied  with  the  story  of  William  Shakespeare, 
any  more  than  a  Coleridge,  or  a  Schlegel ;  nor  attain 
to  any  clear  solution  of  the  problem,  that  the  spon- 
taneous genius  of  a  born  poet,  without  the  help  of 
much  learning,  should  come  to  see  deeper  into  all 
the  mysteries  of  God,  Nature,  and  Man,  and  write 
better  about  the  universal  world,  than  the  most  ac- 
complished scholars,  critics,  and  philosophers,  and  be 
himself  still  unaware  that  he  had  done  anything  re- 
markable, wholly  indifferent  to  fame  (what  might  be 
no  great  wonder),  and  even  (what  may  be  more  to 
the  point)  utterly  heedless  of  the  preservation  of 
works  which  the  author,  howsoever  he  might  deem 
them  to  be  but  trifles  idly  cast  from  him,  could  not 
but  know  to  be  "  the  wanton  burthen  of  the  prime  " 
and  the  best  (in  that  kind)  of  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,  or  of  many  ages  :  —  as  if  he  had  been  one, 

"  whose  hand, 
Like  the  base  Indian,  threw  a  pearl  away, 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe  " ;  — 

an  unparalleled  mortal,  indeed!  —  nor  of  that  other 
problem,  that  a  common  under -actor  should  turn 
poet,  and,  rummaging  over  the  hereditary  lumber  of 
the  play-house,  should  gather  up  the  best  of  the 
traditional  material,  and  through  the  limbec  of  his 


PREFACE.  Vll 

capacious  brain  distil  the  quintessence  of  British 
genius  from  time  immemorial,  —  a  truly  representa- 
tive man,  forsooth  !  Incredulous  men  that  have  been 
born  as  well  as  poets,  and  perhaps  never  believed  so 
much  as  the  tale  about  Santa  Claus,  not  to  speak 
of  many  other  prodigious  miracles,  may  have  pre- 
ferred to  disbelieve  all  the  biographers,  critics,  and 
teachers ;  or,  if  still  believing  them,  to  deny,  flatly, 
in  the  outset,  without  further  question,  or  any  par- 
ticular search,  that  there  could  be,  or  was,  anything 
so  very  great  in  this  Shakespeare  drama  after  all ;  or 
they  may  even  have  tried  to  persuade  themselves 
that  this  ingenious  actor  had,  by  frequent  hearing, 
caught  the  manner  of  the  stage,  and  learned  like  a 
parrot  to  imitate  the  tone,  style,  and  diction  of  trag- 
edy and  comedy  alike ;  still  believing  that  no  deep 
learning,  no  superior  wisdom,  no  high  art,  and  no 
divine  revelation,  beyond  the  natural  flow  of  good 
native  wit  and  sense,  was  to  be  found  in  these  plays, 
and  that  what  little  learning  the  author  had,  was  all 
borrowed,  or  picked  up  about  the  streets  and  theatres, 
allowing  only  that  he  was  gifted  with  some  sharp 
powers  of  observation,  "  a  facetious  grace  in  writing," 
and  a  pretty  large  amount  of  faculty  in  general.  And 
so,  not  imagining  that  the  highest  and  best  things 
could  spontaneously  well  up  in  such  a  man  as  from 
an  original  fountain  of  inspiration,  they  may  have 
laid  him  up  on  a  shelf,  and  never  afterwards  looked 
for  such  things  in  his  works  ;  and  the  jewels  that  lay 
scattered  within  sight  may  have  been  passed  by  un- 
seen, as  if  they  had  been  pearls  cast  before  swine  :  — 

"  'T  is  very  pregnant, 
The  jewel  that  we  find,  we  stoop  and  take  't, 


Viii  PREFACE. 

Because  we  see  it ;  but  what  we  do  not  see, 
We  tread  upon,  and  never  think  of  it." 

Meas.for  Meas.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

Bacon  found  it  to  be  just  so  with  the  history  of 
Winds  ;  for,  says  he,  "  it  is  evident,  that  the  dullness 
of  men  is  such  and  so  infelicitous,  that  when  things 
are  put  before  their  feet,  they  do  not  see  them,  unless 
admonished,  but  pass  right  on."  It  would  stand  to 
reason,  that  the  most  precious  things  would  not  be 
strewn  abroad  thus  by  a  mere  swine-herd,  if  they 
had  not  come  into  his  possession  in  an  accidental 
or  some  other  way,  and  without  his  having  much 
knowledge  of  their  real  value  ;  nor  by  a  coney-catch- 
ing, beer-drinking  idler,  or  a  common  play-actor,  or 
even  a  prosperous  stage-manager.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  learning  does  not  come  by  instinct ;  nor 
can  sensible  men  be  made  to  believe  that  high  phi- 
losophy can  come  by  fantastic  miracle.  There  never 
was  any  royal  road  to  mathematics,  though  there 
have  been  very  royal  mathematicians. 

An  article  appeared  in  Putnam's  Magazine  for 
January  1856  (afterwards  known  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  Delia  Bacon),  in  which  some  general  consid- 
erations were  set  forth  with  much  eloquence  and 
ability,  why  William  Shakespeare  could  not  have 
written  the  plays  which  have  been  attributed  to 
him ;  and  the  opinion  was  also  pretty  distinctly  in- 
timated, that  Lord  Bacon  was  the  real  author  of 
them,  or,  at  least,  that  he  had  had  some  hand  in  the 
work ;  but  no  proofs  were  then  adduced.  Being 
much  struck  with  this  idea,  and  for  my  own  satisfac- 
tion, I  began  to  look  for  the  evidence  on  which  such 
a  proposition  might  rest,  and  finding  it  very  consid- 
erable, and  indeed  quite  amazing,  I  had  thrown  my 


PREFACE.  lx 

notes  into  some  form,  before  the  publication  of  Miss 
Bacon's  work  in  1857.1  Her  book  not  appearing  to 
have  satisfied  the  critical  world  of  the  truth  of  her 
theory,  much  more  than  the  "  Letter  to  Lord  Elles- 
mere,"  by  Mr.  William  Henry  Smith,  I  have  thought 
it  worth  while  to  give  them  the  results  of  my  studies 
also,  which  have  been  considerably  extended,  since 
that  date ;  and  if  enough  be  not  found  herein  to 
settle  the  question  on  impregnable  grounds,  it  may 
at  least  tend  to  exculpate  them  from  any  supposition 
of  mental  aberration  in  so  far  as  they  have  ascribed 
this  authorship  to  Francis  Bacon.  But  I  do  not  at 
all  agree  with  her  opinion  that  any  other  person  had 
a  hand  in  the  work  :  on  the  contrary,  I  will  endeavor 
to  show  that  the  whole  genuine  canon  of  Shake- 
speare was  written  by  this  one  and  the  same  author. 
It  may  be  that  some  persons  have  been  already 
convinced  of  this  fact :  but  the  critics  appear  to  be 
agreed  in  rejecting  the  theory  altogether.  More  direct 
and  palpable  proofs  seem  to  be  required  ;  for  this 
"  our  Shakespeare "  was  not  to  be  stripped  of  the 
peerless  mantle  he  had  worn  unquestioned  for  above 
two  centuries  and  a  half,  on  mere  generalities,  how- 
ever conclusive  to  the  mind  of  the  philosophical 
thinker.  Certainly,  if  he  is  to  be  put  on  trial  for  his 
name  and  reputation,  he  has  a  right  to  be  confronted 
with  the  proofs  in  the  high  court  of  criticism ;  and 
his  jury,  which  is  the  great  republic  of  fetters,  will 
require  the  best  and  the  most  ample  evidence  to  be 
produced,  before  they  will  agree  to  disrobe  him  of 
all  his  honors.  On  nothing  less  than  proof,  the  most 
positive,  direct,  and  complete,  will  those  "  foreign 

1  Philosophy  of  the  Plays  of  Shakspere  Unfolded.    By  Delia  Bacon,  with 
a  Preface  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.    London  and  Boston,  1857. 


X  PREFACE. 

nations  and  next  ages,"  to  whom  the  final  appeal 
was  made,  now  consent  (such  is  the  tenacity  of  long 
adverse  possession)  to  eject  the  ass  from  the  lion's 
skin,  and  turn  over  the  rich  legacy  they  have  so  long 
accepted  in  his  name  to  the  credit  of  another,  though 
that  other  be  one  who  considered  his  name  and 
memory  worth  bequeathing  to  them  :  — 

"  Blanch.    O,  well  did  he  become  that  lion's  robe 
That  did  disrobe  the  lion  of  that  robe ! 

Bast.    It  lies  as  sightly  on  the  back  of  him 
As  great  Alcides'  shews  upon  an  ass.  — 
But,  ass,  I  '11  take  that  burthen  from  your  back, 
Or  lay  on  that  shall  make  your  shoulders  crack." 

K.  John,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

It  should  be  understood,  to  what  manner  of  man 
this  authorship  belongs  ;  for  it  is  not  only 

"  a  fault  to  heaven, 
A  fault  against  the  dead,  a  fault  to  nature, 
To  reason  most  absurd," 

but  a  positive  injury  done  to  learning  and  philosophy, 
and  to  every  individual  scholar  and  man,  who  shall 
be  taught  to  believe  the  enormous  impossibility  that 
such  works  could  be,  and  were,  written  by  mere 
genius  without  learning,  or  by  some  more  fantasti- 
cally supernatural  inspiration.  Does  not  any  honest 
man  feel  an  unutterable  indignation,  when  he  dis- 
covers (after  long  years  of  thought  and  study, 
perhaps),  that  he  has  been  all  the  while  misled  by 
false  instruction,  and  that,  consequently,  the  primest 
sources  of  truth  have  been  left  lumbering  his  shelves 
in  neglect,  because  he  could  not,  or  even  because  he 
could  (for  it  would  be  much  the  same  thing  with 
him,  if  he  could)  be  made  to  believe  that  anything 
more  could  come  from  a  very  common  (or  indeed 
a  very  uncommon)  person,  than   such  a  man  could 


PREFACE.  Xi 

know,  and  that  he  has  thus  been  drawn  aside  by 
false  shadows  from  those  paths  which  alone  can  lead 
to  a  comprehensible  philosophy  of  the  universe,  the 
real  basis  at  last  of  his  everlasting  accountabilities, 
and  been  put  off  and  befooled  with  paltry  child's 
fables  ?  By  the  help  of  the  Eternal  Power  and  such 
abilities  as  we  possess,  let  the  truth  and  the  proof 
of  it  come  forth  as  fast,  and  spread  as  wide,  as  it  is 
possible  to  make  it.  There  is  no  danger  of  its  getting 
too  far  by  any  means  whatever. 

The  chief  object  of  this  work  is,  to  do  something 
toward  making  the  truth  of  this  matter  appear,  still 
more  clearly,  and  on  other  and  (if  possible)  quite 
unanswerable  grounds.  It  was  written  under  the 
supposition  that  no  one  else  would  undertake  to  do 
the  same  thing  better ;  and  it  is  published  because 
it  is  believed  that  the  duty  is  not  yet  sufficiently 
done  (and  I  know  very  well  how  inadequate  is  this 
attempt  to  do  it),  that  sublime  duty,  which  the  great 
testator,  by  his  last  will,  left  to  foreign  nations  and 
the  next  ages  to  perform,  whenever  they  should  be 
able  like  himself  to  comprehend  "  the  universal  world," 
and,  with  Plato,  to  recognize  the  Philosopher,  the 
Poet,  the  Seer,  and  the  Saviour  of  men,  for  all  one, — 
justice  to  his  name  and  memory. 

For  the  quotations  from  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare, 
I  have  preferred  to  make  them  conform  to  the  text 
of  the  edition  edited  by  Richard  Grant  "White,  and 
published  in  Boston,  in  1859-1862,  except  in  a 
very  few  instances  in  which  his  emendations,  or 
previous  readings,  appeared  to  me  to  be  so  clearly 
erroneous  that  I  could  not  accept  them  ;  and  I  have 
done  this  the  more  readilv,  because  this  edition  has 


Xii  PREFACE. 

evidently  been  edited  with  great  care,  good  critical 
judgment,  and  excellent  scholarship,  and  especially 
for  the  reason  that  the  editor  has  taken  the  Folio  of 
1623  as  the  basis  of  his  text  and  his  criticism. 

For  the  text  of  Bacon,  I  have  used  the  edition  of 
his  works  edited  by  Basil  Montagu  (London  1825), 
and  the  American  republication  of  it  (Philadelphia 
1854),  and  also  the  excellent  edition  of  Spedding, 
Ellis,  and  Heath  (since  the  republication  of  it  in 
Boston,  in  1860-1864),  which  has  been  edited  with 
extraordinary  learning  and  ability  ;  but  as  the  larger 
part  of  my  work  was  done  before  this  edition  ap- 
peared, I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  under- 
take the  labor  of  making  the  references  conform  to 
either  one  edition  only.  Wherever  I  have  discovered 
an  erroneous  reading  to  have  been  corrected  by  the 
later  and  better  edition,  I  have  not  failed  to  profit 
by  it.  In  making  quotations  from  the  Latin  works,  I 
have  not  hesitated  to  give  my  own  translations,  when 
no  better  were  at  hand,  but  always  with  especial 
care  to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  the  style,  manner, 
and  diction  of  the  author,  and,  at  all  events,  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  original,  as  it  would  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  language  of  modern  philosophy. 

For  the  Letters  of  Bacon,  I  have  had  to  depend 
mainly  upon  the  edition  of  Montagu,  but  with  the 
valuable  assistance  of  the  first  two  volumes  of  the 
"  Letters  and  Life  of  Lord  Bacon  "  by  James  Sped- 
ding (London  1861-2),  which  contain  the  letters  and 
occasional  works  down  to  the  year  1601,  carefully 
edited  and  explained  in  chronological  order ;  and  I 
have  regretted  exceedingly  that  the  remaining  vol- 
umes of  this  interesting  and  important  work  have 
not  yet  appeared. 


PREFACE.  xili 

The  Frontispiece,  engraved  and  brought  to  life  by- 
Mr.  Joseph  Andrews  of  Boston,  is  taken  from  the 
engraving  (in  Montagu's  edition)  of  the  white  mar- 
ble monument  which  was  erected  to  the  memory  of 
Lord  Bacon  by  "  the  care  and  gratitude "  of  Sir 
Thomas  Meautys,  within  the  precincts  of  old  Veru- 
lam,  "  representing  his  full  portraiture  in  the  posture 
of  studying,"  says  Dr.  Rawley,  together  with  a  part 
of  the  inscription  composed  by  that  "  rare  wit,"  Sir 
Henry  Wotton. 

Without  more,  the  work  is  submitted  to  the  con- 
sideration and  judgment  of  the  general  jury  of  candid 
readers ;  and,  as  more  than  one  author  has  said  be- 
fore, if  they  shall  find  half  the  pleasure  in  reading  it 
that  I  have  had  in  writing  it,  they  shall  be  welcome. 

N.  HOLMES. 
St.  Louis,  May  21st,  1866. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PRELIMINARIES.  —  SHAKESPEARE. 

PAGE 

§  1.   EARLY  LIFE 1 

§  2.   EMPLOYMENTS 5 

§  3.   MANUSCRIPTS 7 

§  4.   HIS   LEARNING 9 

§  5.   HIS   STUDIES 28 

§  6.   EARLY    PLAYS 31 

§  7.    DOUBTFUL    PLAYS 50 

§  8.    THE    AUTHOR'S   ATTAINMENTS          ....  56 

§  9.   THE   TRUE    ORIGINAL   COPIES 65 

CHAPTER  II. 

PRELIMINARIES.  —  BACON. 

§  1.   CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS 81 

§  2.   CIRCUMSTANCES 110 

§  3.    THE   HISTORICAL   PLAYS 117 

§  4.    THE   GREATER    PLAYS 131 

§  5.   ASSOCIATES 136 

CHAPTER  IH. 

FURTHER  PROOFS. 

§  1.  PARALLEL   WORKS 148 

§  2.   BEN  JON80N     .                                 165 

§3.  Matthew's  postscript 172 

§4.  contemporary  writers 177 

§5.  reasons  for  concealment 179 

§  6.  bacon  a  poet 184 

§  7.  gesta  grayorum 207 

§  8.  fragment8 228 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

MORE  DIRECT  PROOFS. 

PAGE 

§  1.   THE   RICHARD   II 239 

§  2.   THE    HENRY   VIII 273 

§  3.   JULIUS    CM2SAR 286 

§  4.    THE    SOOTHSAYER 290 

§5.   MACBETH.  —  VISIONS 295 

§  6.   PARALLELISMS 303 

CHAPTER  V. 

MODELS. 

§  1.   "  ILLUSTRATIVE   EXAMPLES  " 828 

§  2.   THE   AS    YOU   LIKE   IT. — A   MODEL  .  .  .  344 

§  3.   THE   TIMON   OF   ATHENS.  —  A   MODEL  .  .  .  854 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PHILOSOPHICAL  EVIDENCES. 

§  1.   BACON   A   PHILOSOPHER 379 

§  2.   THE   PHILOSOPHER   A   POET 393 

§  3.   UNIVERSALS 398 

§  4.   CUPID   AND  NEMESIS 409 

§  5.   SCIENCE   OF   MATTER 415 

§  6.    SCIENCE    OF    SOUL 426 

§  7.   ALL    SCIENCE 438 

§  8.    SCIENCE   IN   POETRY 444 

§  9.   REMEMBRANCE    AND    OBLIVION         ....  452 

§  10.   MIRACLES   AND   IMMORTALITY  ....  464 

CHAPTER  VH. 

SPIRITUAL  ILLUMINATION. 

§  1.   THE   TRUE   RELIGION 479 

§  2.   DESTINY 496 

§  3.  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE 523 

§4.  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE 537 

§  5.  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE 558 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

§  1.  REFORMATION   OF   ABUSES 576 

§  2.   PHILOSOPHER   AND   POET 589 


THE 

AUTHORSHIP  OF  SHAKESPEARE. 

CHAPTER   I. 

PRELIMINARIES.  —  SHAKESPEARE. 

"  Do  not  inflate  plain  things  Into  marvels,  but  reduce  marvels  to  plain  things." 

Bacon. 

§  1.   EABLT   LIFE. 

The  biography  of  William  Shakespeare  may  now  be 
considered  as  in  the  main  settled  and  fixed  for  all  time. 
Modern  research  has  explored  every  forgotten  corner  in 
search  of  new  facts ;  all  discoverable  archives  and  dusty 
repositories  of  lost  books  and  derelict  papers  have  been 
ransacked ;  every  known  record,  monument,  and  relic,  of 
the  age  in  which  he  lived,  has  been  thoroughly  questioned, 
even  to  the  last  trace  and  tradition  of  his  name  and  family ; 
and,  failing  any  further  genuine  data,  the  most  ingenious 
and  consummate  forgeries  have  been  attempted.  And  if 
all  honest  inquiry  be  not  yet  exhausted,  it  has  been  made 
sufficiently  clear,  at  least,  that  but  little  more  can  be  added 
hereafter  to  what  is  already  known  of  his  personal  history, 
and  nothing  that  can  be  expected  materially  to  change  the 
general  scope  and  character  of  the  latest  received  account 
of  his  life.  He  is  thus  delivered  down  to  us  as  essentially 
an  uneducated  man,  whether  we  are  to  speak  of  education 
in  the  sense  of  modern  times,  or  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
or  of  the  ancient  schools.  True,  there  have  been  great 
self-educated  men  in  all  times ;  as,  indeed,  who  is  not,  at 
last,  in  one  sense,  a  self-educated  man  ?    That  there  is  a 


2  EARLY  LIFE. 

vast  difference,  however,  between  the  learning  and  philoso- 
phy which  the  same  genius  will  attain  to,  in  a  given  time, 
in  any  age,  with  the  aid  of  all  existing  helps,  and  that 
which  he  may  reach  without  such  aid,  no  man  needs  to  be 
informed.  School,  or  no  school,  without  books  and  studies, 
we  know  that  learning  is  impossible. 

Beyond  that  primary  instruction  which  could  be  obtained 
at  the  free  grammar-school  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  in  which 
Latin  was  taught  by  one  master,  nearly  three  centuries 
ago,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  William  Shakespeare  had  no 
learning  from  public  institutions,  or  from  private  tuition. 
His  father,  John  Shakespeare,  a  glover  by  trade,  sometime 
wool-stapler  and  butcher,  at  different  times  constable,  high 
bailiff,  and  alderman  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  and,  at  last,  a 
gentleman,  by  grant  of  a  coat-of-arms  from  the  Herald's 
College,  in  1599,  at  the  instance  of  his  son  William,  when 
he  had  attained  to  prosperity,  was  no  doubt  a  respectable 
burgher  of  that  place,  but  certainly  so  illiterate  that  he 
could  not  write  his  own  name,  and  executed  written  instru- 
ments by  making  his  mark ;  and  the  same  was  the  case 
with  his  mother,  notwithstanding  that  she  was  descended 
of  an  ancient  family  of  goodly  estate.  From  the  manner 
in  which  the  name  was  written  by  members  of  the  family 
in  Warwickshire,  it  is  evident  that  it  was  usually  pro- 
nounced Shaxper,  though  it  seems  to  have  had  no  fixed 
spelling  among  them,  not  even  with  William  himself,  for 
his  autographic  signatures  to  his  will  appear  to  have  it  both 
Shakspere  and  Shakspeare  ;  but  it  was  printed  in  his  life- 
time, and  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  and  passed  into  the  con- 
temporary literature,  as  Shakespeare  ;  and  so  let  it  remain.1 

William  Shakespeare  was  born  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  on 
the  23d  day  of  April,  1564,  and  according  to  what  is  known 
of  his  early  life,  he  attended  the  free  grammar-school  of 
that  place  for  some  few  years  and  until  about  the  year 
1578,  when  he  was  taken  from  school,  his  assistance  being 
1  Halliwell's  Life  of  WiUiam  Shakespeare,  London,  1848. 


EARLY  LIFE.  3 

required  by  his  father  in  his  business  at  home.  The  occu- 
pations in  which  his  father  appears  to  have  been  engaged, 
at  this  time,  were  those  of  an  ordinary  yeoman,  including 
the  business  of  a  glover,  a  wool-stapler,  and,  as  some  say,  a 
butcher  also ;  and  he  was,  at  the  same  time,  and  down  to 
the  year  1586,  an  alderman  of  the  corporation  of  Stratford. 
On  the  28th  day  of  November,  1582,  the  son  William  was 
married,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  to  Ann  Hathaway,  some 
years  older  than  himself,  and  the  daughter  of  a  neighbor- 
ing farmer.  Their  eldest  daughter,  Susanna,  was  born  in 
May  following ;  but  his  latest  biographer  thinks  there  must 
have  been  some  preliminary  espousals,  in  accordance  with 
a  frequent  custom  of  the  time,  as  early  as  the  summer  of 
1582.1  After  this  date,  his  father  appears  to  have  fallen 
into  embarrassed  circumstances.  He  was  superseded  in  his 
office  of  alderman,  in  1586,  for  non-attendance,  and  was 
presented  as  a  recusant,  in  1592,  "  for  not  coming  to  church 
for  feare  of  process  for  debt."  There  is  indubitable  evi- 
dence that,  for  several  years  prior  to  1587,  different  theat- 
rical companies  from  London  occasionally  visited  Stratford- 
on-Avon  (the  native  place  of  some  of  the  actors),  in  some 
instances,  under  the  patronage  of  John  Shakespeare  and 
other  aldermen ;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  son 
William  would  be  attracted  to  their  company.  There  are 
uncertain  traditions  also  that,  during  this  period,  he  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  drinking  beer  with  the  pot-house 
clubs,  hunting  coneys  for  amusement,  and  poaching  on  the 
neighboring  deer-parks  by  way  of  romance,  until  he  was 
driven  away  from  Stratford  by  the  persecution  of  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy ;  but  whether  from  this  cause,  or  driven  by 
stress  of  poverty,  or  merely  drawn  by  the  attractions  of  the 
theatre,  it  appears  that,  about  the  year  1587,  he  went  up  to 
London,  carrying  with  him  but  a  small  stock  of  learning, 
and  became  attached  to  the  theatre  in  a  very  humble  capac- 
ity. Ben  Jonson  informs  us  that  he  had  "  but  small  Latin 
i  HaUiweU. 


4  EARLY  LIFE. 

and  less  Greek  "  ;  and  "  rare  Ben  "  must  certainly  have 
known  the  truth  of  the  matter.  Indeed,  it  is  plain  his 
learning  must  have  been  little  enough,  however  obtained  ; 
and  in  this,  all  the  traditions  concur.  Precisely  how  his 
time  was  employed,  during  these  nine  years  after  leaving 
the  grammar-school,  of  course  we  cannot  certainly  know  ; 
but  there  is  no  intimation  in  anything  that  has  come  down 
to  us,  that  he  was  at  all  given  to  books,  or  to  studies  of  any 
kind.  The  employments  in  which  it  would  seem  to  be 
almost  certain  he  must  have  been  engaged,  the  circum- 
stances which  surrounded  him,  and  the  few  details  of  his  life 
which  have  been  preserved,  would  all  go  to  exclude  the 
hypothesis  of  his  having  given  any  considerable  attention 
to  letters  or  studies,  in  this  period.  There  is  no  written 
composition  of  his  in  existence,  belonging  to  this  time,  and 
no  proof  that  there  ever  was  any,  except  a  mere  tradition 
of  a  lampoon  upon  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  of  which  no  scrap 
has  been  authentically  preserved.  The  verses  which  later 
traditions  have  attributed  to  him,  whether  as  fragments  of 
this  supposed  lampoon,  or  as  epitaphs  and  epigrams  written 
towards  the  close  of  his  career,  are,  as  any  one  may  see, 
but  miserable  doggerel  at  best,  and  might  have  been  writ- 
ten by  the  sorriest  poetaster.  With  Halliwell  and  other 
critics,  though  immaterial  to  our  purpose,  we  may  safely 
reject  them  all  as  having  no  reliable  basis  of  authenticity, 
and  as  necessarily  implying,  on  the  supposition  of  such 
basis,  ''a  deterioration  of  power  for  which  no  one  has 
assigned  a  sufficient  reason." 1  The  critic  who  would  find 
a  trace  of  the  great  poet  in  these  performances,  should 
remember  Bacon's  caution  to  the  interpreter  of  nature : 
"  If  the  sow  with  her  snout  should  happen  to  imprint  the 
letter  A  upon  the  ground,  wouldst  thou,  therefore,  imagine 
she  could  write  out  a  whole  tragedy  as  one  letter  ?  " a 

1  Halliwell,  270. 

2  Interp.  of  Nat,   Works,  by  Montagu,  (London),  XV.,  101 ;   Temporis 
Partus  Mas.,  Works,  by  Spedding,  Ellis,  and  Heath,  (Boston),  VII.,  30. 


EMPLOYMENTS.  5 

§  2.    EMPLOYMENTS. 

That  his  first  employment,  on  coming  to  London,  was 
that  of  a  link-boy,  holding  horses  at  the  door  of  the  theatre, 
as  some  traditions  represent,  would  seem  to  be  very  ques- 
tionable ;  but  that  it  was  not  in  any  capacity  above  that  of 
a  mere  "  servitor,"  or  under-actor,  his  most  careful  biogra- 
phers seem  to  admit  as  highly  probable,  if  not  quite  cer- 
tain. The  first  certain  knowledge  that  we  have  of  him 
in  London,  however,  is  of  the  date  of  1592,  when  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  distinct  allusion  to  his  name  in 
Greene's  "  Groatsworth  of  Wit,"  in  which,  apparently 
speaking  for  himself  and  other  writers  for  the  stage  against 
the  actors,  "  those  Anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours,"  Greene 
says  :  "  Yes,  trust  them  not ;  for  there  is  an  upstart  crow 
beautified  with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygres  heart, 
wrapt  in  a  players  hyde,  supposes  hee  is  as  well  able  to 
bombast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you  ;  and  beeing 
an  absolute  Johannes  factotum,  is,  in  his  owne  conceyt,  the 
only  Shake-scene  in  a  countrey."  1  From  this  it  may  be 
inferred  that  he  was  beginning  to  have  some  kind  of  repu- 
tation as  an  author  of  plays,  and,  in  1593-4,  the  "  Venus 
and  Adonis  "  and  the  "  Rape  of  Lucrece  "  are  dedicated  to 
the  Earl  of  Southampton  under  his  name.  From  this 
time  forward  a  few  scattered  notices  of  him  have  been 
gathered  up  from  contemporary  records  and  documents 
relating  to  purchases  of  lands,  his  money  dealings  with  his 
neighbors,  and  ordinary  business  transactions ;  but,  abating 
all  merely  mythical  traditions  of  uncertain  origin,  and  the 
impudent  forgeries  of  these  later  times,  no  further  authen- 
tic reference  to  his  position  in  the  theatre  occurs  until 
1598,  when  his  name  is  mentioned  by  Meres  as  the  reputed 
author  of  several  of  these  plays,  and  two  of  them  are 
printed  with  his  name  as  author  on  the  title-page,  in  that 
year.  That  he  was  one  of  the  inhabitants  of  Southwark, 
i  See  Halliwell's  Life,  144. 


6  EMPLOYMENTS. 

dwelling  near  the  Bear  Garden  in  1596,  seems  to  rest  upon 
very  questionable  authority;  but,  in  1597,  he  had  purchased 
New  Place,  in  Stratford-on-Avon,  where  his  family  contin- 
ued to  reside  until  his  death.  In  1598,  we  find  him  lend- 
ing money  to  his  neighbors,  and  performing  his  part  on  the 
stage  ;  and  in  1599,  he  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  for  his 
father  the  grant  of  a  coat  of  arms  from  the  Herald's  Col- 
lege, which  descended  to  himself  in  1601.  And  in  1604, 
when  the  perfected  "  Hamlet "  had  been  produced,  he  had 
become  a  leading  manager  and  sharer  in  the  Globe  and 
Blackfriars,  and  his  name  stood  second  only  in  the  list  of 
patentees,  "  His  Majesty's  Servants."  From  this  date  until 
1613,  the  personal  notices  that  remain  to  us  exhibit  him  as 
being  always  very  attentive  to  matters  of  business,  rapidly 
growing  in  estate,  purchasing  farms,  houses,  and  tythes  in 
Stratford,  bringing  suits  for  small  sums  against  various 
persons  for  malt  delivered,  money  loaned,  and  the  like, 
carrying  on  agricultural  pursuits  and  other  kinds  of  traffic, 
with  "  a  good  grip  o'  the  siller,"  and  executing  business 
commissions  in  London  for  his  Stratford  neighbors,  while 
we  are  to  suppose  he  was,  at  the  same  time,  producing  such 
plays  as  the  "  Hamlet,"  the  "Macbeth,"  the  "  Othello,"  the 
"  Lear,"  and  the  "  Julius  Caesar " ;  whence  it  might  cer- 
tainly be  concluded,  that  he  had  an  excellent  capacity  for 
business  in  addition  to  his  other  arts  and  superhuman  gifts ; 
but  there  is  nowhere  the  slightest  note  or  trace  of  his  liter- 
ary occupations. 

He  had  now  acquired  a  brilliant  reputation  and  an  ample 
estate.  It  seems  probable  that  he  quit  acting  upon  the 
stage  about  the  year  1608,  and  that,  in  1610,  he  finally 
retired  from  any  active  participation  in  the  affairs  of  the 
theatre,  though  he  may  have  still  continued  to  receive  for  a 
time  his  share  of  the  income  as  one  of  the  largest  proprie- 
tors ;  but  how  long,  it  is  not  certainly  known.  It  would 
seem  probable,  however,  that  he  had  parted  with  his  inter- 
est in  the  theatres  sometime  before  the  30th  of  June,  1 613, 


MANUSCRIPTS.  7 

when  the  Globe  theatre  was  destroyed  by  fire.  It  is  known 
that  as  late  as  March,  1613,  he  made  the  purchase  of  a 
house  in  the  Blackfriars ;  and  this  is  the  last  transaction  in 
which  he  is  positively  ascertained  to  have  been  concerned 
in  London.  After  this  date,  we  hear  of  him  only  at  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon,  attending  to  business  and  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  life,  leisurely  enjoying  the  social  intercourse  of  his  neigh- 
bors and  his  family,  until  his  death  in  1616.  Indeed, 
throughout  his  life  (as  his  most  zealous  biographer  is 
obliged  to  confess),  "the  best  evidence  we  can  produce 
exhibits  him  as  paying  more  regard  to  his  social  affairs 
than  to  his  profession." l  And  so,  it  would  seem  to  be  true, 
as  some  still  think,  that,  in  the  words  of  Pope,  — 

"  Shakespeare,  whom  you  and  every  playhouse-bill 
Style  the  divine,  matchless,  what  you  will, 
For  gain,  not  glory,  wing'd  his  roving  flight, 
And  grew  immortal  in  his  own  despight." 

§  3.   MANUSCRIPTS. 

No  original  manuscript  of  any  play,  or  poem,  letter,  or 
other  prose  composition,  in  the  handwriting  of  William 
Shakespeare,  has  ever  been  discovered :  none  is  known  to 
have  been  preserved  within  the  reach  of  the  remotest  defi- 
nite tradition.  It  does  not  appear  by  any  direct  proof  that 
the  original  manuscript  of  any  one  of  the  plays  or  poems 
was  ever  seen,  even  in  his  own  time,  in  his  own  handwrit- 
ing, under  such  circumstances  as  to  afford  any  conclusive 
evidence,  however  probable,  that  he  was  the  original  author. 
"  I  remember,"  says  Ben  Jonson,  "  the  players  have  often 
mentioned  it  as  an  honour  to  Shakespeare,  that  in  his  writ- 
ing (whatsoever  he  penn'd)  hee  never  blotted  out  line." 
We  have  only  to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  manu- 
scripts may  have  been  copied  by  him  from  some  unknown 
complete  and  finished  originals,  which  were  kept  a  secret 
from  the  world,  and  this  wonder  of  the  players  would  be 
i  Halliwell,  194. 


8  MANUSCRIPTS. 

at  once  explained.  Meres,  in  1598,  speaks  of  "  his  sugred 
sonnets  among  his  private  friends,"  as  if  they  had  been  cir- 
culated in  manuscript ;  but  even  this  does  not  exclude  the 
possibility  of  another  having  been  the  author,  in  the  same 
way,  though  in  itself  highly  improbable  at  first  view.  That 
he  was  universally  reputed  to  be  the  author  of  these  works, 
in  his  own  time,  not  merely  by  the  public  in  general,  but 
by  contemporary  writers,  his  fellows  of  the  theatre,  the 
printers  and  publishers,  and  some  great  personages,  and 
that  the  fact  was  never  publicly  questioned,  in  that  age,  nor 
indeed  until  a  very  recent  date,  must  be  admitted,  though 
some  evidence  may  be  adduced  herein,  tending  to  show 
that  the  contrary  was  known,  or  at  least  strongly  suspected, 
by  some  few  persons  at  that  day.  It  is  enough  here  to 
remark,  that  this  reputation  alone  is  not  absolutely  conclu- 
sive of  the  question.  No  more  is  that  other  very  pregnant 
circumstance,  the  fact  that  the  "  Venus  and  Adonis  "  and 
the  "  Kape  of  Lucrece "  were  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of 
Southampton  under  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare ;  for 
it  is  clearly  possible,  however  improbable  at  first  view,  that 
even  this  may  have  been  arranged  and  designed  as  a  cover 
for  the  real  author.  In  short,  there  is  no  positive  and 
direct  evidence  in  any  contemporary  record,  fact,  circum- 
stance, or  event,  relating  to  Shakespeare,  which  is  in  itself 
of  such  a  nature  that  it  must  be  accepted  in  his  favor  as 
conclusive  of  the  question  of  this  authorship.  He  makes 
no  mention  of  his  manuscripts,  or  literary  property,  in  his 
will ;  nor  is  there  a  trace  of  evidence  that  they  ever  came 
into  the  possession  of  his  executors,  or  of  any  member  of 
his  family.  But  for  this  there  may  have  been  the  less  occa- 
sion, if  we  assume  that  the  manuscript  copies  had  all  been 
sold  to  the  theatre,  and  that  not  a  single  duplicate  copy 
had  ever  been  retained  in  his  own  possession.  It  might  be 
possible,  indeed,  that  some  of  them  may  have  been  burnt 
with  the  Globe  theatre  in  1613:  when  the  Fortune  was 
burnt,  in  1621,  we  know  the  play-books  were  all  lost.     It  is 


HIS  LEARNING.  9 

a  wholly  gratuitous  assumption,  however,  though  barely 
possible,  that  they  were  heedlessly  cast  aside  into  old 
chests,  and  suffered  to  be  destroyed  by  fires,  or  that  they 
fell  into  the  hands  of  ignorant  persons  to  be  used  for  waste 
paper.  If  he  had  contemplated  a  revision  of  his  works  for 
publication  during  his  own  life,  from  the  accomplishment 
of  which  he  was  prevented  by  sudden  illness  and  death,  it 
is  scarcely  credible  that  he  should  not  have  given  some 
instructions  to  that  end,  either  to  his  executors  in  his  will, 
or  to  some  confidential  friend  on  whom  such  injunction 
would  not  have  been  lost.  Heming  and  Condell  give  us 
no  intimation,  in  their  Preface  to  the  Folio  of  1 623,  from 
what  source  they  had  received  "  the  true  original  copies  "  : 
we  are  left  to  infer  that  they  had  gathered  them  up  from 
the  theatres  owned  by  the  company. 

§  4.   HIS    LEARNING. 

Fpr  the  learning  of  Shakespeare,  his  knowledge  of  his- 
tory and  of  the  manners,  customs,  and  literature  of  the 
ancients,  his  acquaintance  with  foreign  languages,  his  nat- 
ural science  and  metaphysical  philosophy,  his  skill  in  the 
medical  lore  of  his  time,  as  also  in  the  laws  of  England, 
his  familiarity  with  the  manners  of  the  Court  and  high 
society,  the  vast  range  of  his  observation  in  all  the  realms 
of  nature  and  art,  as  well  as  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  civil 
state,  or  to  the  affairs  of  private  life,  or  to  the  characters, 
passions,  and  affections  of  men  and  women,  or  to  human 
life  and  destiny,  the  subtle  profundity  of  his  intellect,  and 
his  extraordinary  insight  into  all  the  relations  of  things,  — 
all  this,  and  much  more  than  can  be  stated,  must  wholly 
depend  upon  the  argument  to  be  drawn  from  the  internal 
evidence  contained  in  the  writings  themselves,  not  only 
unsupported  in  any  adequate  manner,  but  for  the  most  part 
absolutely  contradicted  by  the  known  facts  of  his  personal 
history  It  is  apparent  that  this  argument  can  have  no 
weight  whatever  in  favor  of  "William  Shakespeare,  until  the 


10  HIS  LEARNING. 

fact  be  established  that  he  was  really  the  autnor  of  these 
works  ;  and  this  is  the  very  question  we  have  in  hand. 

The  learning  and  philosophy  of  these  plays  of  Shake- 
speare, especially  since  the  feeble  attempt  of  Dr.  Farmer 
to  make  them  appear  to  be  possible  for  the  supposed 
author,  have  been  a  matter  of  wonder  to  editorial  critics, 
and  a  stumbling-block  to  all  great  writers,  who  have  treated 
of  the  subject.  Even  Dr.  Johnson  was  willing  to  admit  he 
must  have  had  "  Latin  enough  to  grammaticize  his  Eng- 
lish," while  conceding  that  Ben  Jonson  must  have  known, 
and  "  ought  to  decide  the  controversy." 1  Pope,  knowing 
well  enough  that  there  was  "  certainly  a  vast  difference 
between  learning  and  languages,  thought  it  was  "  plain  he 
had  much  reading,  at  least,"  but  was  obliged,  at  last,  to 
declare  that  "  he  seems  to  have  known  the  world  by  intui- 
tion, to  have  looked  through  human  nature  at  one  glance, 
and  to  be  the  only  author  that  gives  ground  for  a  very  new 
opinion,  that  the  philosopher  and  even  the  man  of  the 
world  may  be  born,  as  well  as  the  poet." 2  Steevens  and 
Malone,  after  laborious  research,  undertook  to  produce  a 
list  of  the  translations  of  ancient  authors,  known  to  have 
existed  in  English  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  as  the 
source  of  all  his  classical  erudition  ;  but  it  falls  far  short  of 
furnishing  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  matter,  in  our 
day,  and  in  the  face  of  numerous  instances  to  the  contrary, 
scarcely  less  decisive  than  this  one,  that  the  "  Timon  of 
Athens  "  turns  out  to  have  been  founded  in  great  part  upon 
the  untranslated  Greek  of  Lucian  ; 8  besides  that  it  is  now 
clear  enough  to  the  attentive  scholar,  that  this  author  drew 
materials,  ideas,  and  even  expressions,  from  the  tragedies 
of  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  and  even  from  Plato,  no  less 
than  from  the  Latin  of  Ovid,  Virgil,  Horace,  Seneca,  and 
Tacitus,  not  to  mention  numerous  others  of  the  ancient 

1  Johnson's  Preface. 

2  Pope's  Preface. 

3  Knight's  Stud,  of  Skaks.,  71;  Luc.  Opera  (ed.  Dindorf,  Lipsi*,  1858),  I. 
30-51. 


HIS  LEARNING.  11 

classics,  and  apparently  with  the  utmost  indifference  to  the 
question  whether  they  had  ever  been  translated  into  Eng- 
lish or  not. 

Indeed,  his  learning  took  the  widest  range.  Mr.  Collier, 
profoundly  impressed  by  a  certain  frequency  of  legal  terms 
and  expressions  in  the  plays,  is  ready,  thereupon,  to  add  an 
entire  new  passage  to  the  known  biography  of  William 
Shakespeare,  to  the  effect  that,  in  his  youth,  he  had  studied 
law  in  the  office  of  an  attorney,  or,  at  least,  a  bailiff,  at 
Stratford ;  and  the  learned  essay  of  Lord  Chief  Justice 
Campbell,1  addressed  to  him  upon  the  subject,  comes  to 
this  conclusion  upon  Shakespeare's  juridical  phrases  and 
forensic  allusions :  "  On  the  retrospect  I  am  amazed,"  says 
his  Lordship,  "  not  only  by  their  number,  but  by  the  accu- 
racy and  propriety  with  which  they  are  uniformly  intro- 
duced." And  he  adds :  "  There  is  nothing  so  dangerous  as 
for  one  not  of  the  craft  to  tamper  with  our  freemasonry." 
He  thought  we  might  be  "justified  in  believing  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  clerk  in  an  attorney's  office  at  Stratford  with- 
out any  direct  proof  of  the  fact,"  mainly  relying,  with  Mr. 
Collier,  upon  "  the  seemingly  utter  impossibility  of  Shake- 
speare having  acquired,  on  any  other  theory,  the  wonderful 
knowledge  of  law  which  he  undoubtedly  displays."  Never- 
theless, his  Lordship  was  constrained  to  warn  his  friend, 
that  he  had  not  "  really  become  an  absolute  convert "  to  his 
side  of  the  question ;  nor  did  he  fail  to  remark,  that  the 
theory  required  us  "  implicitly  to  believe  a  fact,  which,  were 
it  true,  positive  and  irrefragable  evidence,  in  Shakespeare's 
own  handwriting"  in  the  records  of  the  courts,  or  in  deeds 
and  wills  written  or  witnessed  by  him,  and  preserved  in  the 
archives  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  might  have  been  forthcom- 
ing to  establish  it ;  but,  "  after  diligent  search,"  none  such 
had  been,  or  could  be,  discovered. 

The  argument  might  justify,  but  does  not  require,  an 
examination  here  into  the  special  learning  of  this  author  in 
1  Shakespeare1  s  Legal  Acquirements  (N.  York,  1859),  p.  132. 


12  HIS  LEARNING. 

matters  of  law,  or  medicine.  This  work  has  already  been 
so  far  accomplished  by  distinguished  members  of  these  pro- 
fessions as  to  convince  them,  if  not  the  critical  world,  that 
he  had  a  very  wonderful  acquaintance  with  both.  Let  it 
suffice  to  notice  a  single  instance  (cited  by  Lord  Camp- 
bell *)  of  his  familiarity  with  Plowden,  whose  preface  was 
dated  from  the  Middle  Temple,  in  1578,  the  same  year  in 
which  William  Shakespeare  is  said  to  have  been  taken 
from  school  by  his  father,  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  The  dis- 
cussion of  the  grave-diggers  in  the  "  Hamlet,"  as  to  whether 
the  drowned  Ophelia  was  entitled  to  Christian  burial, 
"  proves,"  says  his  Lordship,  "  that  Shakespeare  [he  meant, 
of  course,  the  author  of  the  play]  had  read  and  studied 
Plowden's  Report  of  the  celebrated  case  of  Hales  v.  Petit.2 
Sir  James  Hales,  a  Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  having 
been  imprisoned  for  being  concerned  in  the  plot  to  place 
Lady  Jane  Grey  upon  the  throne,  and  afterwards  pardoned, 
was  so  affected  in  mind  as  to  commit  suicide  by  drowning 
himself  in  a  river.  The  coroner's  inquest  found  a  verdict 
of  felo  de  se,  under  which  his  body  was  to  be  buried  at  a 
cross-road,  with  a  stake  thrust  through  it,  and  his  goods 
and  estates  were  forfeited  to  the  crown.  A  knotty  ques- 
tion arose  upon  the  suit  of  his  widow  for  an  estate  by  sur- 
vivorship in  joint-tenancy,  whether  the  forfeiture  could  be 
considered  as  having  taken  place  in  the  lifetime  of  Sir 
James  Hales  ;  for,  if  it  did  not,  she  took  the  estate  by  sur- 
vivorship. 

Sergeant  Southcote  argued  for  the  lady,  that  as  long  as 
he  was  alive  he  had  not  killed  himself,  and  the  moment 
that  he  died,  the  estate  vested  in  the  plaintiff.  "  The  felony 
of  the  husband  shall  not  take  away  her  title  by  survivor- 
ship, for  in  this  manner  of  felony  two  things  are  to  be  con- 
sidered :  First,  the  cause  of  the  death  ;  secondly,  the  death 
ensuing  the  cause ;  and  these  two  make  the  felony,  and 
without  both  of  them  the  felony  is  not  consummate.  And 
1  Shakes.  Leg.  Acq.,  p.  104.  2  plowden's  Rep.,  256-9. 


HIS  LEARNING.  13 

the  cause  of  the  death  is  the  act  done  in  the  party's  life- 
time, which  makes  the  death  to  follow.  And  the  act  which 
brought  on  the  death  here  was  the  throwing  himself  volun- 
tarily into  the  water,  for  this  was  the  cause  of  his  death. 
And  if  a  man  kills  himself  by  a  wound  which  he  gives 
himself  with  a  knife,  or  if  he  hangs  himself,  as  the  wound  or 
the  hanging,  which  is  the  act  done  in  the  party's  lifetime,  is 
the  cause  of  his  death,  so  is  the  throwing  himself  into  the 
water  here.  Forasmuch  as  he  cannot  be  attainted  of  his 
own  death,  because  he  is  dead  before  there  is  any  time  to 
attaint  him,  the  finding  of  his  death  by  the  coroner  is  by 
necessity  of  law  equivalent  to  an  attainder  in  fact  coming 
after  his  death.  He  cannot  be  felo  de  se  till  the  death  is 
fully  consummate,  and  the  death  precedes  the  felony  and 
the  forfeiture." 

Sergeant  Walsh,  on  the  other  side,  argued  that  the  for- 
feiture had  relation  to  the  act  done  in  the  party's  lifetime, 
which  was  the  cause  of  his  death.  "  Upon  this  the  parts 
of  the  act  are  to  he  considered ;  and  the  act  consists  of  three 
parts.  The  first  is  the  imagination,  which  is  a  reflection  or 
meditation  of  the  mind,  whether  or  no  it  is  convenient  for 
him  to  destroy  himself,  and  what  way  it  can  be  done.  The 
second  is  the  resolution,  which  is  a  determination  of  the 
mind  to  destroy  himself,  and  to  do  it  in  this  or  that  partic- 
ular way.  The  third  is  the  perfection,  which  is  the  execu- 
tion of  what  the  mind  has  resolved  to  do.  And  this  per- 
fection consists  of  two  parts,  viz.,  the  beginning  and  the 
end.  The  beginning  is  the  doing  of  the  act  which  causes 
the  death  ;  and  the  end  is  the  death,  which  is  only  a  sequel 
to  the  act.  And  of  all  the  parts  the  doing  of  the  act  is  the 
greatest  in  the  judgment  of  our  law,  and  it  is  in  effect  the 
whole.  The  doing  of  the  act  is  the  only  point  which  the  law 
regards ;  for  until  the  act  is  done  it  cannot  be  an  offence 
to  the  world,  and  when  the  act  is  done  it  is  punishable. 
Inasmuch  as  the  person  who  did  the  act  is  dead,  his  person 
cannot  be  punished,  and  therefore  there  is  no  way  elsa  to 


14  HIS  LEARNING. 

punish  him  but  by  the  forfeiture  of  those  things  which  were 
his  own  at  the  time  of  his  death." 

Bendloe  cited  a  case  in  which  "  a  lunatic  wounded  him- 
self mortally  with  a  knife,  and  afterwards  became  of  sound 
mind,  and  had  the  rights  of  Holy  Church,  and  after  died  of 
the  said  wound,  and  his  chattels  were  not  forfeited ; "  and 
Carus  cited  another,  "  where  it  appears  that  one  who  had 
taken  sanctuary  in  a  church  was  out  in  the  night,  and  the 
town  pursued  him,  and  the  felon  defended  himself  with 
clubs  and  stones,  and  would  not  render  himself  to  the 
King's  peace,  and  one  struck  off  his  head  ;  and  the  goods 
of  the  person  killed  were  forfeited,  for  he  could  not  be 
arraigned,  because  he  was  killed  by  his  own  fault,  for  which 
reason,  upon  the  truth  of  the  matter  found,  his  goods  were 
forfeited.     Here,  the  inquiry  before  the  coroner  super  visum 

corporis, is  equivalent  to  a  judgment  given  against 

him  in  his  lifetime,  and  the  forfeiture  has  relation  to  the 
act  which  was  the  cause  of  his  death,  viz.  the  throwing  him- 
self into  the  water." 

Dyer,  C.  J.,  giving  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  said  :  — 
"  The  forfeiture  shall  have  relation  to  the  act  done  by  Sir 
James  Hales  in  his  lifetime,  which  was  the  cause  of  his 
death,  viz.  the  throwing  himself  into  the  water."  He  made 
five  points :  —  "•  First,  the  quality  of  the  offence  ;  secondly, 
to  whom  the  offence  was  committed  ;  thirdly,  what  he  shall 
forfeit ;  fourthly,  from  what  time ;  and  fifthly,  if  the  term 

here  shall  be  taken  from  the  wife." As  to  the  second 

point,  it  is  an  offence  against  nature,  against  God,  and 
against  the  King.  Against  nature,  for  every  living  thing 
does  by  instinct  of  nature  defend  itself  from  destruction,  and 
then  to  destroy  one's  self  is  contrary  to  nature,  and  a  thing 
most  horrible.  Against  God,  in  that  it  is  a  breach  of  his 
commandment,  thou  shalt  not  kill;  and  to  kill  himself,  by 
which  he  kills  in  presumption  his  own  soul,  is  a  greater 
offence  than  to  kill  another.  Against  the  King,  in  that 
hereby  he  has  lost  a  subject,  and  (as  Brown  termed  it)  he 


HIS  LEARNING.  15 

being  the  head,  has  lost  one  of  his  mystical  members." 

It  was  agreed  by  all  the  Judges,  "that  he  shall 

forfeit  all  his  goods ;  for  Broicn  said  the  reason  why  the 
King  shall  have  the  goods  and  chattels  of  a  felo  de  se, 

is  not  because  he  is  out  of  Holy  Church,  so  that 

for   that  reason  the  Bishop  will  not  meddle  with  them, 

but  for  the  loss  of  his  subject,  and  for  the  breach 

of  his  peace,  and  for  the  evil  example  given  to  his  people, 
and  not  in  respect  that  Holy  Church  will  not  meddle  with 
them,  for  he  is  adjudged  none  of  the  members  of  Holy 
Church." 

"As  to  the  fourth  point,  viz.,  to  what  time  the  forfeiture 
shall  have  relation ;  the  forfeiture  here  shall  have  relation 
to  the  time  of  the  original  offence  committed,  which  was 
the  cause  of  the  death,  and  that  was  the  throwing  himself 
into  the  water,  which  was  done  in  his  lifetime,  and  this 

act  was  felony So  that  the  felony  is  attributed  to 

the  act,  which  is  always  done  by  a  living  man,  and  in  his 
lifetime :  for  Sir  James  Hales  was  dead,  and  how  came  he 
to  his  death  ?  By  drowning.  And  who  drowned  him  ? 
Sir  James  Hales.  And  when  did  he  drown  him  ?  In  his 
lifetime.  So  that  Sir  James  Hales  being  alive  caused  Sir 
James  Hales  to  die ;  and  the  act  of  the  living  man  was  the 
death  of  the  dead  man.  But  how  can  he  be  said  to  be 
punished  alive  when  the  punishment  comes  after  his  death  ? 
Sir,  this  can  be  done  no  other  way  than  by  devesting  out 
of  him  his  title  and  property,  from  the  time  of  the  act  done 
which  was  the  cause  of  his  death,  viz.  the  throwing  himself 
into  the  water." 

Now,  that  this  very  report  is  plainly  travestied  in  the 
"  Hamlet,"  can  admit  of  no  possible  doubt.  Ophelia  had 
not  drowned  herself  voluntarily,  but,  like  the  lunatic  who 
became  of  sound  mind,  and  had  "  the  rights  of  Holy 
Church,"  to  the  glassy  stream,  where  "  a  willow  grows 
aslant  the  brook," 

"  There,  with  fantastic  garlands,  did  she  come," 


16  HIS  LEARNING. 

and 

"  There,  on  the  pendent  boughs  her  coronet  weeds 
Clamb'ring  to  hang,  an  envious  sliver  broke, 
When  down  her  weedy  trophies  and  herself 
Fell  in  the  weeping  brook.    Her  clothes  spread  wide, 
And  mermaid-like,  a  while  they  bore  her  up ; 
Which  time,  she  chanted  snatches  of  old  tunes ; 
As  one  incapable  of  her  own  distress, 
Or  like  a  creature  native  and  indu'd 
Unto  that  element :  but  long  it  could  not  be, 
Till  that  her  garments,  heavy  with  their  drink, 
Pull'd  the  poor  wretch  from  her  melodious  lay 
To  muddy  death."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  7. 

Otherwise,  as  the  author  well  knew,  the  Coroner's  inquest 
would  have  found  her  a  "felo  de  se,"  and  she  must  have 
been  buried,  as  one  "  out  of  Holy  Church,"  at  a  cross-road, 
where,  says  the  Priest,  — 

"  Her  obsequies  have  been  as  far  enlarg'd 
As  we  have  warrantise :  her  death  was  doubtful ; 
And  but  that  great  command  o'ersways  the  order, 
She  should  in  ground  unsanctified  have  lodg'd, 
Till  the  last  trumpet:  for  charitable  prayers, 
Shards,  flints,  and  pebbles  should  be  thrown  on  her; 
Yet  here  she  is  allow'd  her  virgin  rites, 
Her  maiden  strewments,  and  the  bringing  home 
Of  bell  and  burial."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  in  the  same  scene  in  which,  with  all  technical  skill  in 
the  use  of  the  abstrusest  terms  of  the  law,  he  so  easily  emp- 
ties "  the  skull  of  a  lawyer  "  of  "  his  quiddits  now,  his  quil- 
lets, his   cases,  his   tenures,  and  his  tricks," his 

action  of  battery, his  statutes,  his  recognizances, 

his  fines,  his  double  vouchers,  his  recoveries,"  now  that 
"  the  fine  of  his  fines,  and  the  recovery  of  his  recoveries  " 
is,  "  to  have  his  fine  pate  full  of  fine  dirt,"  he  makes  the 
clowns  discourse,  on  the  question  of  the  voluntary  drown- 
ing and  the  right  to  Christian  burial,  thus  :  — 

"  1st  Clo.,  Is  she  to  be  buried  in  Christian  burial,  that  wilfully  seeks  her 
own  salvation? 

2d  Clo.  I  tell  thee,  she  is;  and  therefore  make  her  grave  straight:  the 
crowner  hath  set  on  her,  and  finds  it  Christian  burial. 


HIS  LEARNING.  17 

1st  Clo.  How  can  that  be,  unless  she  droxon'd  herself  in  her  own  de- 
fence f 

2d  Clo.    Why,  H  is  found  so. 

1st  Clo.  It  must  be  se  ojfendendo ;  it  cannot  be  else.  For  here  lies  the 
point:  if  I  drown  myself  wittingly,  it  argues  an  act,  and  an  act  hath  three 
branches;  it  is,  to  act,  to  do,  and  to  perform :  argal,  she  drowned  herself  wit- 
tingly. 

2d  Clo.   Nay,  but  hear  you,  goodman  delver. 

1st  Clo.  Give  me  leave.  Here  lies  the  water;  good:  here  stands  the 
man;  good:  if  the  man  go  to  this  water,  and  drown  himself,  it  is,  will  he, 
nill  he,  he  goes ;  mark  you  that :  but  if  the  water  come  to  him,  and  drown 
him,  he  drowns  not  himself:  argal,  he  that  is  not  guilty  of  his  own  death 
shortens  not  his  own  life. 

2d  Clo.    But  is  this  law? 

1st  Clo.    Ay,  marry,  is 't;  crowner's 'quest  law. 

2d  Ch.  "Will  you  ha'  the  truth  on  'tt  If  this  had  not  been  a  gentle- 
woman, she  should  have  been  buried  out  of  Christian  burial. 

1st  Clo.  Why,  there  thou  say'st,  and  the  more  pity,  that  great  folk  shall 
have  countenance  in  this  world  to  drown  or  hang  themselves,  more  than 
their  even  Christian."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

A  careful  comparison  of  these  passages  may  satisfy  the 
critical  reader  that  the  author  of  the  play  had  certainly 
read  this  report  of  Plowden.  They  are  not  adduced  here 
as  amounting  to  proof  that  the  author  was  any  other  than 
William  Shakespeare,  but  rather  as  a  circumstance  bearing 
upon  the  antecedent  probabilities  of  the  case  ;  for  there  is 
not  the  slightest  ground  for  a  belief,  on  the  facts  which  we 
know,  that  Shakespeare  ever  looked  into  Plowden's  Re- 
ports ;  while  it  is  quite  certain  that  Francis  Bacon,  who 
commenced  his  legal  studies  at  Gray's  Inn  in  the  very  next 
year  after  the  date  of  Plowden's  preface,  did  have  occasion 
to  make  himself  familiar  with  that  work,  some  years  before 
the  appearance  of  the  "  Hamlet."  And  the  mode  of  rea- 
soning, and  the  manner  of  the  report,  bordering  so  nearly 
upon  the  ludicrous,  would  be  sure  to  impress  the  memory 
of  Bacon,  whose  nature,  as  we  know,  was  singularly  capable 
of  wit  and  humor. 

Not  less  curious  is  it  to  observe,  that  Mr.  Hackett,  as 
early  as  1859,  noticing  the  numerous  metaphorical  expres- 
2 


18  HIS  LEARNING. 

sions  in  the  plays,  which  relate  to  the  flowing  of  the  blood 
to  and  from  the  heart  or  liver,  and  which  imply,  when 
closely  examined,  a  critical  knowledge  of  the  physiology  of 
this  subject,  as  understood  by  professional  authors  down  to 
that  day,  has  actually  maintained  the  proposition  that  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare  had  anticipated  the  celebrated  Harvey 
in  the  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood.1  And  not 
much  later,  a  distinguished  English  physician,  following  the 
example  of  Lord  Campbell  in  the  department  of  law,  has 
undertaken  to  demonstrate  that  "  the  immortal  dramatist," 
though  he  had  not  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
had  nevertheless  "  paid  an  amount  of  attention  to  subjects 
of  medical  interest  scarcely  if  at  all  inferior  to  that  which 
has  served  as  the  basis  of  the  learned  and  ingenious  argu- 
ment, that  this  intellectual  king  of  men  had  devoted  seven 
good  years  of  his  life  to  the  practice  of  law."  2  Moreover, 
this  same  writer,  on  diligent  examination,  was  "  surprised 
and  astonished  "  at  "  the  extent  and  exactness  of  the  psy- 
chological knowledge  displayed  "  in  these  plays,  and  very 
naturally  came  to  the  conclusion  that  "  abnormal  conditions 
of  mind  had  attracted  Shakespeare's  diligent  observation, 
and  had  been  his  favorite  study." 8  He  finds  instances 
which  amount  "  not  merely  to  evidence,  but  to  proof,  that 
Shakespeare  had  read  widely  in  medical  literature,"  and 
continues  thus :  —  "  For  the  honor  of  medicine,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  point  to  any  great  author,  not  himself  a 
physician,  in  whose  works  the  healing  art  is  referred  to 
more  frequently  and  more  respectfully  than  in  those  of 
Shakespeare."  Dr.  Bucknill  even  ventures  to  suggest 
that  the  marriage  of  Shakespeare's  eldest  daughter,  in  1607, 
with  Dr.  John  Hall,  the  physician,  who  afterwards  lived  in 
the  same  house  with  him  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  may  have 
been  the  means  of  imparting  to  the  mind  of  the  poet  some 

1  Notes  on  Shakes.  Plays  and  Actors  (New  York,  1863),  p.  268. 

2  Shakes.  Med.  Knowl,  by  John  Charles  Bucknill,  M.  D.,  London,  1860. 

8  Psychology  of  Shakes.,  by  John  Charles  Bucknill,  M.  D..,  London,  1859. 


HIS  LEARNING.  19 

degree  of  medical  knowledge.  But,  unfortunately  for  this 
theory,  nearly  all  the  plays  from  which  the  most  striking 
passages  concerning  the  flow  of  the  blood  have  been  cited, 
were  written  prior  to  that  date,  and  some  of  them  long  be- 
fore. Mr.  Hackett  seems  to  think  there  may  have  been 
some  intimacy  between  the  poet  and  the  doctor,  "  long 
previous  to  the  marriage,"  and  so,  that  Shakespeare  "  may 
have  made  himself  acquainted  with  every  important  fact 
or  theory  which  had  transpired  in  relation  to  the  subject." 
This  is  indeed  possible ;  but  it  would  be  a  more  satisfactory 
explanation  of  this  very  special  feature  in  the  plays,  if  it 
did  not  require  us  to  carry  back  his  medical  studies,  at 
least,  to  the  date  of  the  "  King  John,"  and  almost  make 
them  encroach  upon  those  seven  good  years  already  de- 
manded for  the  study  of  law,  especially  in  the  absence  of 
any  positive  evidence  in  his  personal  history  that  he  had 
ever  looked  into  a  book  of  law  or  medicine. 

But  Dr.  Bucknill,  as  well  as  the  American  physician 
who  controverted  the  views  of  Mr.  Hackett,  more  thor- 
oughly versed  in  medical  science,  has  successfully  made  it 
appear,  not  merely  that  the  Shakespearian  expressions  do 
not  imply  a  knowledge  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  in 
the  sense  of  Harvey,  but  that  they  are,  in  truth,  in  very 
exact  accordance  with  the  doctrines  of  Galen,  Hippocrates, 
Rabelais,  and  others,  who  were,  prior  to  Harvey,  "  the 
learned  and  authentic  fellows"  in  this  branch  of  knowl- 
edge, and  with  whose  writings,  as  we  certainly  know,  Sir 
Francis  Bacon  was  quite  familiar,  for  he  cites  and  reviews 
these  very  authors,  together  with  Aristotle,  Celsus,  Porta, 
Cardan,  Fabricius,  Servetus,  Telesius,  Paracelsus,  and 
many  more  :  — 

"  Parolles.    Why,  'tis  the  rarest  argument  of  wonder  that  hath  shot  out 
in  our  latter  times. 
Bertram.    And  so  't  is. 

Lafleur.    To  be  relinquished  of  the  artists, 

Parolles.    So  I  say ;  both  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus. 
Lafleur.    Of  all  the  learned  and  authentic  fellows,  — 
ParoUes.    Right,  so  I  say."  —  All '»  Well,  Act  II.  8c.  3. 


20  HIS   LEARNING. 

Harvey's  discovery,  though  supposed  to  have  been  made 
known  at  the  College  of  Physicians  as  early  as  1615,  was 
first  publicly  announced  in  his  published  work  on  the  sub- 
ject, in  1619,  three  years  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare. 
The  plays  from  which  Mr.  Hackett  cites  his  evidences  were 
all  written  before  1610,  and  most  of  them  several  years 
earlier.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Bacon,  however,  may  have 
heard  something  of  Harvey's  discovery,  or  even  seen  his 
book,  before  the  publication  of  the  Folio  of  1623.  So 
remarkable  a  fact  should  have  awakened  a  profound  inter- 
est in  a  mind  like  his ;  but  there  is  no  intimation  in  any  of 
his  writings  that  he  was  at  all  acquainted  with  this  discov- 
ery. Nor  is  it  probable  that  any  author  would  have  occa- 
sion to  alter  and  adapt  his  poetical  metaphors  to  the  scien- 
tific niceties  of  the  latest  announcement. 

Prior  to  Harvey,  and  as  early  as  1553,  Michael  Servetus 
of  Geneva  had  discovered  the  flow  of  the  blood  from  the 
right  side  of  the  heart,  through  valves  opening  towards  the 
lungs,  and  from  thence,  through  the  pulmonary  vein,  to  the 
left  ventricle,  whence  he  supposed  it  was  diffused  through 
the  whole  body ;  and  Fabricius  of  Padua  had  discovered 
the  valves  in  the  veins  opening  towards  the  heart.  Harvey 
was  his  pupil,  about  the  year  1 600,  and  from  him  learned 
the  fact  which  first  suggested  the  idea  of  the  general  circu- 
lation.1 The  most  suggestive  passage  of  all  those  cited 
from  Shakespeare,  in  proof  that  he  was  in  possession  of  the 
same  idea,  is  that  in  which  the  ghost  in  "  Hamlet  "  is  made 
to  say  of  "  the  blood  of  man,"  — 

"  That  swift  as  quicksilver,  it  courses  through 
The  natural  gates  and  alleys  of  the  body ' ' ; 

and  this  appears  in  the  first  printed  editions  of  the  "  Ham- 
let" (1603  and  1604),  that  of  1603  reading  "posteth" 
instead  of  "  courses  " ;  but  in  the  language  and  thought  of 
all  these  passages,  striking  resemblances  to  the  ideas,  style, 
and  diction  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon  may  be  distinctly  noted, 
as  in  these  examples :  — 

i  Craik's  Eng.  Lit.,  II.  149. 


HIS  LEAEXING.  21 

"  make  thick  my  blood, 

Stop  up  the  access  and  passage  to  remorse." 

Macbeth,  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

"  Why  does  my  blood  thus  muster  to  my  heart, 
Making  both  it  unable  for  itself, 
And  dispossessing  all  my  other  parts 
Of  necessary  fitness  ?  " 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

"  The  tide  of  blood  in  me 
Hath  proudly  flow'd  in  vanity  till  now: 
Now  doth  it  turn,  and  ebb  back  to  the  sea, 
Where  it  shall  mingle  with  the  state  of  floods, 
And  flow  henceforth  in  formal  majesty." 

2  Henry  IV.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  Had  bak'd  thy  blood,  and  made  it  heavy,  thick, 
(Which,  else,  runs  tickling  np  and  down  the  veins)." 

King  John,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"  my  heart,    .    .    . 

The  fountain  from  the  which  my  current  runs, 
Or  else  dries  up." —  Othello,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

"  Time  hath  not  yet  so  dried  this  blood  of  mine." 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  The  spring,  the  head,  the  fountain  of  your  blood 
Is  stopp'd;  the  very  source  of  it  is  stopp'd." 

Macbeth,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"  Lord  Angelo  is  precise ; 
Stands  at  a  guard  with  envy ;  scarce  confesses 

That  his  blood  flows,"  — 

"  a  man  whose  blood 

Is  a  very  snow-broth." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  1.  Sc.  4,  5. 

"  Runs  not  this  speech  like  iron  through  your  blood  ?  " 

Much  Ado,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  I  send  it  through  the  rivers  of  your  blood, 
Even  to  the  court,  the  heart,  to  th'  seat  o'  th'  brain ; 
And  through  the  cranks  and  offices  of  man, 
The  strongest  nerves,  and  small  inferior  veins, 
From  me  receive  that  natural  competency 
Whereby  they  live."  —  Coriolanus,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  The  second  property  of  your  excellent  sherris  is,  the  warming  of  the 
blood;  which,  before  cold  and  settled,  left  the  liver  white  and  pale,  .  . 
but  the  sherris  warms  it,  and  makes  it  course  from  the  inwards  to  the  parts 


22  HIS  LEARNING. 

extreme  ....  —  and  then  the  vital  commoners  and  inland  petty  spirits 
muster  me  all  to  their  captain,  the  heart."  —  2  Henry  1 V.,  Act  I V.  Sc.  3. 

Now,  the  spring-head,  the  fountain,  and  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  the  sea,  are  frequent  sources  of  metaphor,  both  with 
Bacon  and  the  plays  ;  as,  for  instance,  this  from  a  letter  to 
the  king:  "Let  your  Majesty's  grace,  in  this  my  desire, 
stream  down  upon  me,  and  let  it  be  out  of  the  fountain  and 
spring-head,  and  *  ex  mero  motu,'  that,  living  or  dying,  the 
print  of  the  goodness  of  King  James  may  be  in  my 
heart."1  In  the  "Advancement"  (1605),  we  have  the 
results  of  Bacon's  general  survey  of  the  state  of  medical 
learning  down  to  his  own  time,  in  which  he  says  of  the 
anatomists,  that  "  they  inquire  not  of  the  diversities  of  the 
parts,  the  secrecies  of  the  passages,  and  the  seats  or  nest- 
lings of  the  humours,  nor  much  of  the  footsteps  and 
impressions  of  diseases."  So,  Shakespeare  seems  to  con- 
sider the  heart  as  a  seat,  or  court,  into  which  the  blood 
musters,  or  nestles,  as  it.  courses  up  and  down,  through  the 
secret  accesses  and  passages,  through  "  the  cranks  and 
offices  of  man,"  — 

"  The  natural  gates  and  alleys  of  the  body." 

"  As  to  the  diversity  of  parts,"  he  continues,  "  there  is  no 
doubt  but  the  facture  or  framing  of  the  inward  parts  is  as 
full  of  differences  as  the  outward ;  .  .  As  for  the  pas- 
sages and  pores,  it  is  true,  which  was  anciently  noted,  that 
the  more  subtle  of  them  appear  not  in  anatomies,  because 
they  are  short  and  latent  in  dead  bodies,  though  they  be 
open  and  manifest  in  live ;  which  being  supposed,  though 
the  inhumanity  of  '  anatomia  vivorum '  was  by  Celsus  justly 
reproved,  yet  in  regard  of  the  great  use  of  this  observa- 
tion, the  inquiry  needed  not  by  him  so  sliyhtly  to  have  been 
relinquished  altogether  "  : 2 

"Laf.    To  be  relinquished  of  the  artists  — 
Par.    So  I  say ;  both  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus." 

i  Letter  of  July  30, 1624,  Works  (Philad.)  III.  24. 
2  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Works  (Philad.)  I.  204-5. 


HIS  LEARNING.  23 

So  he  writes :  "  I  ever  liked  the  Galenists,  that  deal  with 
good  compositions,  and  not  the  Paracelsians,  that  deal  with 
these  fine  separations."  *  Again,  he  says :  "  In  preparation 
of  medicines,  I  do  find  strange,  especially  considering  how 
mineral  medicines  have  been  extolled,  and  that  they  are 
safer  for  the  outward  than  inward  parts,  that  no  man  hath 
sought  to  make  an  imitation  by  art  of  natural  baths  and 
medicinable  fountains "  ;  and  again,  "  while  the  life-blood 
of  Spain  went  inward  to  the  heart,  the  outward  limbs  and 
members  trembled  and  could  not  resist."  2  The  play  says  : — 

"  Death,  having  preyed  upon  the  outward  parts, 
Leaves  them  insensible." 

Here  we  have  the  same  general  and  vague  notions  as  to 
the  structure  of  these  inward  and  extreme  parts,  with  a 
kind  of  repetition  of  the  favorite  words  in  the  "  natural 
baths,"  "  mineral  medicines,"  and  "  medicinable  foun- 
tains " ;  which  may  also  call  to  mind  these  lines  from  the 

"Othello":  — 

"  the  thought  whereof 

Doth  like  a  poisonous  mineral  gnaw  my  inwards." 

Othello,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

*  Blood  is  stanched,"  he  says  again,  "  by  drawing  of  the 
spirits  and  blood  inwards ;  which  is  done  by  cold  ;  as  iron 
or  a  stone  laid  upon  the  neck  doth  stanch  the  bleeding  of 
the  nose."  So,  according  to  Falstaff,  "  the  cold  blood " 
of  Prince  Harry,  which  "  he  did  naturally  inherit  of  his 
.  father,"  was,  by  "  drinking  good,  and  good  store  of  fertile 
sherris,"  become  "  very  hot  and  valiant." 

He  speaks  also  of  "  the  sudden  recess  of  the  spirits," 
and  of  "  the  recess  of  the  blood  by  sympathy,"  and  says, 
that "  there  is  a  fifth  way  also  in  use,  to  let  blood  in  an 
adverse  part  for  a  revulsion." 8  This  goes  upon  the  idea 
of  a  flowing  outward  and  a  receding  inward  of  the  blood, 

1  Letter  to  Cecil,  Spedding's  Let.  and  Life,  I.  356. 

2  Speech,  Spedding's  Let.  and  Life,  II.  89. 
«  Nat.  Hist.,  §  66. 


24  HIS  LEARNING. 

a  sort  of  "tickling  up  and  down  the  veins";  and  it  is 
in  exact  keeping  with  Falstaff's  notion  of  the  effect  of 
"  sherris,"  that  "  warms  the  blood,  which,  before  cold  and 
settled,  left  the  liver  white  and  pale,"  as  well  as  with  the 
blood  of  Lord  Angelo,  which  was  "  a  very  snow-broth." 
And  here,  also,  in  the  iron  laid  upon  the  neck,  that  singu- 
lar simile  of  a  speech  running  "  like  iron  through  your 
blood,"  may  find  an  explanation  of  its  origin. 

He  continues :  "  But  the  cause  is,  for  that  all  those  diets 
do  dry  up  humours,  rheums,  and  the  like :  and  they  cannot 
dry  up  until  they  have  first  attenuated ;  and  while  the  hu- 
mour is  attenuated,  it  is  more  fluid  than  it  was  before,  and 
troubleth  the  body  a  great  deal  more  until  it  be  dried  up 
and  consumed."  Here,  we  have  a  similar  physiological  idea 
as  in  the  case  of — 

"  The  fountain  from  which  my  current  runs, 
Or  else  dries  up; "  — 

and  probably,  also,  the  source  of  the  expression,  — 
"Time  hath  not  yet  so  dried  this  blood  of  mine." 
Dr.  Bucknill  assures  us  that  "  Shakespeare  follows  Hippo- 
crates," and  that  he  refers  to  a  theory  of  that  author,  "  that 
the  veins,  which  were  thought  the  only  blood-vessels,  had 
their  origin  in  the  liver.  The  Father  of  Medicine  main- 
tained that  they  came  from  the  liver,  the  arteries  from  the 
heart "  ;  and  he  adds,  that  "  Rabelais  expresses  the  doctrine 
of  the  function  of  the  liver  which  is  implied  in  Falstaff's 
disquisition,"  namely,  "  that  the  liver  conveys  blood  through 
the  veins  for  the  good  of  the  whole  body."  He  cites  further 
in  support  of  his  views  these  lines  from  the  "  Merchant  of 

Venice  " :  — 

"  and  let  my  liver  rather  heat  with  wine, 

Than  my  heart  cool  with  mortifying  groans." 

His  conclusion  is,  that  Shakespeare  believed,  indeed,  in  the 
flow  of  the  blood,  "  the  rivers  of  your  blood,"  which  went 
even  "  to  the  court,  the  heart "  ;  but  he  considered  that  it 
was  the  liver,  and  not  the  heart,  which  was  the  cause  of 


HIS  LEARNING.  25 

the  flow  " ;  but  he  does  not  find  in  Shakespeare  "  a  trace  of 
any  knowledge  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,"  in  the  sense 
of  Harvey.1 

Now,  as  to  whether  or  not  "William  Shakespeare  ever 
read  these  authors,  we  have  not  the  least  information  ;  but 
we  certainly  know  that  Francis  Bacon  made  apothegms 
out  of  this  same  Rabelais,  and  that  he  had  studied  Hippo- 
crates,2 "  the  Father  of  the  Art,"  as  well  as  Galen,  Para- 
celsus, and  the  rest  And  he  concludes  a  letter  addressed 
to  the  Scottish  physician,  Dr.  Morison,  in  1603,  on  the 
coming  in  of  King  James,  in  these  words  :  "  So  not  doubt- 
ing to  see  you  here  with  his  Majesty,  considering  that  it 
belongeth  to  your  art  to  feel  pulses,  and  I  assure  you  Galen 
doth  not  set  down  greater  variety  of  pulses  than  do  vent 
here  in  men's  hearts  " ; 8  and  the  mind  of  the  author  of  the 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet"  (1595)  must  have  been  running  upon 
the  very  subject  of  these  investigations :  — 

"  through  all  thy  veins  shall  run 

A  cold  and  drowsy  humour,  which  shall  seize 
Each  vital  spirit ;  for  no  pulse  shall  keep 
His  natural  progress,  but  surcease  to  beat." 

Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

And  it  may  very  well  be  taken  here  as  one  of  those 
numerous  and  singular  coincidences  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion, which  everywhere  drop  out  in  the  works  of  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare,  and  especially  in  those  which  were  writ- 
ten at  about  the  same  date  and  upon  kindred  subjects,  that 
the  phrase  applied  to  Celsus,  "  the  inquiry  needed  not  by  him 
so  slightly  to  have  been  relinquished  altogether"  should  reap- 
pear in  his  review  of  the  labors  of  these  same  learned 
authors,  and  before  that  "  rarest  argument  of  wonder," 
which,  in  the  play  (written  prior  to  1594),  was  "  to  be  relin- 
quished of  the  artists, both  of  Galen  and  Paracel- 
sus" and  "  all  the  learned  and  authentic  fellows"  had  as  yet 
entirely  passed  out  of  his  memory.    Nor  need  there  be  any 

i  Hackett's  Notes,  292.  2  Adv.  of  Learn. 

8  Letter,  Works  (Philad.)  HI.  197. 


26  HIS  LEARNING. 

wonder  that  the  ideas,  expressions,  words,  metaphors,  and 
technical  learning  of  the  two  writings,  in  medicine  as  in 
law,  and  in  many  other  branches  of  learning  besides, 
should  be  so  exactly  alike,  if  we  once  conceive  (what  will  be 
further  demonstrated)  that  Francis  Bacon  was  the  author 
of  both. 

The  German  critic,  Schlegel,  equally  amazed  at  the  ex- 
tent of  the  knowledge  and  the  depth  of  the  philosophy  of 
these  plays  of  Shakespeare,  the  author  of  which  he  could 
not  but  consider  as  one  who  had  mastered  "  all  the  things 
and  relations  of  this  world,"  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  the 
received  account  of  his  life  to  be  "  a  mere  fabulous  story,  a 
blind  and  extravagant  error  " : *  this  Shakespeare  must  have 
been  another  sort  of  man  from  what  we  know  him.  The 
Germans  seem  to  have  been  the  first  to  discover  and  appre- 
ciate the  full  depth  of  his  philosophy,  not  excepting  Ger- 
vinus,  who  appears  to  have  had  less  difficulty  about  the 
author  himself.  That  a  single  passage,  which  had  never 
attracted  the  particular  attention  of  an  English  critic,  other- 
wise than  as  a  brilliant  figure  of  speech,  should  be  capable 
of  creating  whole  books  in  the  soul  of  Jean  Paul  Richter, 
is,  perhaps,  not  much  to  be  wondered  at ;  especially,  if  we 
consider  that  he,  to  whose  great  learning,  deep  philosophy, 
and  divine  vision,  this  universe  became  crystalline  and 
transparent,  did  not  fail  to  see  that  no  one  had  "  better 
pursued  and  illumined  the  actual  truth  of  things,  even  into 
the  deepest  vales  and  the  little  worms  therein,  than  those 
twin-stars  of  poesy,  Homer  and  Shakespeare." 2 

Indeed,  the  bare  proposition,  that  this  man,  on  his  arri- 
val in  London,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  with  only  such  a 
history  as  we  possess  of  his  previous  life,  education,  studies, 
and  pursuits,  could  have  begun  almost  immediately  to  pro- 
duce the  matchless  works  which  we  know  by  his  name,  not 

i  Lectures  on  Dram.  IAt.,  by  A.  W.  Schlegel,  Tr.  by  John  Black,  (Philad. 
1833,)  p.  289. 
a  Vorschule  der  JEsthetik,  Werke,  I.  25. 


HIS  LEARNING.  27 

merely  the  most  masterly  works  of  art,  and  as  such  in  the 
opinion  of  eminent  critics,  surpassing  the  Greek  tragedy 
itself,  but  classical  poems,  and  plays  the  most  profoundly 
philosophical  in  the  English  language,  or  any  other  (for  no 
less  a  critic  than  Goethe  has  awarded  this  high  praise),  may 
justly  strike  us  in  the  outset  as  simply  preposterous  and 
absurd.  "  What !  "  exclaims  Coleridge,  at  this  consequence 
of  the  traditional  biography,  "  are  we  to  have  miracles  in 

sport  ? Does  God  choose  idiots  by  whom  to  convey 

divine  truths  to  man  ?  "  *  Emerson,  no  less,  considering 
that  the  Shakespeare  Society  had  ascertained  that  this 
"William  Shakespeare  was  "  a  good-natured  sort  of  man,  a 
jovial  actor,  manager,  and  shareholder,  not  in  any  striking 
manner  distinguished  from  other  actors  and  managers," 
and  that  he  was  "  a  veritable  farmer  "  withal,  engaged  in  all 
sorts  of  traffic  at  Stratford,  doing  business  commissions  in 
London,  and  suing  Philip  Rogers  for  malt  delivered,  while 
writing  a  "  Hamlet,"  or  a  *  Lear,"  is  apparently  obliged  to 
lay  down  the  problem  in  despair,  with  this  significant  con- 
fession :  "  I  cannot  marry  this  fact  to  his  verse.  Other 
admirable  men  have  led  lives  in  some  sort  of  keeping  with 
their  thought ;  but  this  man,  in  wide  contrast." 2  In  like 
manner,  Jean  Paul  Richter  "  would  have  him  buried,  if  his 
life  were  like  his  writings,  with  Pythagoras,  Plato,  Socrates, 
and  the  highest  nobility  of  the  human  race,  in  the  same 
best  consecrated  earth  of  our  globe,  God's  flower-garden  in 
the  deep  North."8  Indeed,  considering  how  this  man 
should  drop  the  theatre  as  an  idle  pastime,  or  as  a  trade 
that  had  filled  his  coffers,  and  should  quietly  sit  him  down 
for  the  remainder  of  life  merely  to  talk  and  jest  with  the 
Stratford  burghers,  and,  turning  over  his  works  to  the 
spoiling  hand  of  blundering  printers  and  surreptitious 
traffic,  regardless  of  his  own  reputation,  heedless  of  the 
world  around  him,  leaving  his  manuscripts  to  perish,  taking 

i  Notes  on  Shakes.,  Works,  IV.  56.  2  Rep.  Men,  215. 

8  Werke,  I.  241. 


28  HIS  STUDIES. 

no  thought  of  foreign  nations,  or  the  next  ages,  or  as  if  not 
deeming  he  had  written  anything  worthy  of  preservation, 
should  "  steal  in  silence  to  his  grave," 1  beneath  a  doggerel 
epitaph  reputed  to  have  been  written  by  himself,  and  cer- 
tainly suitable  enough  for  his  "  bones,"  by  the  side  of  which 
the  knowing  friends  who  erected  a  monument  over  him 
caused  to  be  inscribed  a  Latin  memento,  which  might 
indeed  do  honor  to  the  memory  of  the  "  Star  of  Poets  " :  — 

"  Judicio  Pylium,  genio  Soeratem,  arte  Maronem, 
Terra  tegit,  populus  mceret,  Olympus  habet " ;  — 

any  man  might  wonder,  if  he  did  not  laugh  outright,  to  see 
this  Son  of  Momus  wearing  thus  his  lion's  skin  even  in  his 
tomb.  Carlyle,  that  other  master-critic  of  our  time,  chew- 
ing the  cud  of  this  "  careless  mortal,  open  to  the  Universe 
and  its  influences,  not  caring  strenuously  to  open  himself; 
who,  Prometheus-like,  will  scale  Heaven  (if  it  so  must  be), 
and  is  satisfied  if  he  therewith  pay  the  rent  of  his  London 
Play-house,"  as  it  were,  with  the  imperturbability  of  Teu- 
felsdroch  himself,  simply  breaks  out,  at  last,  with  this  brief 
exclamation :  "  An  unparalleled  mortal." 2 

§  5.    HIS   STUDIES. 

There  is  no  evidence  on  record  other  than  that  which  is 
drawn  from  the  works  themselves,  that  during  his  connec- 
tion with  the  theatre  in  London,  he  was  given  to  profound 
studies  or  much  reading ;  and  it  is  evident  that  no  man  in 
his  circumstances,  conditions,  and  daily  occupations,  could 
have  found  time,  means,  and  facilities,  not  merely  for  sup- 
plying the  known  deficiencies  of  his  previous  education,  but 
to  make  extensive  and  thorough  acquisitions  in  all  depart- 
ments of  human  knowledge,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  carry 
on  the  work  of  inventing  and  writing  these  extraordinary 
compositions.  If  it  were  to  be  admitted  that  he  was  in  fact 
the  author  of  them,  then  of  course,  all  the  rest  should  be 

i  Mem.  of  the  Court  of  James  I.,  by  Lucy  Aiken. 
a  Essays  (Boston,  1861),  III.  211. 


HIS  STUDIES.  29 

presumed,  however  miraculous  and  inconceivable.  There 
are  no  certain  proofs  that  he  enjoyed  the  intimacy  of  liter- 
ary associates  beyond  the  purlieus  of  the  theatre  and  cer- 
tain small  writers  for  the  stage,  Ben  Jonson  only  excepted. 
Some  of  his  earlier  contemporaries,  like  Greene,  made  en- 
vious attacks  upon  him,  significantly  hinting  at  the  incon- 
gruity between  him  and  his  supposed  productions ;  though 
numerous  other  writers  and  poets  of  later  dates,  following 
the  general  report,  unquestionably  recognized  him  as  the 
admitted  author  of  the  works  which  were  attributed  to  him. 
He  certainly  had  the  acquaintance  and  friendship  of  Ben 
Jonson,  who  was  famous  among  the  literary  men  of  his 
time,  received  the  countenance  of  the  Court,  and  enjoyed 
the  intimacy  and  favor  of  high  literary  characters,  and  par- 
ticularly of  Lord  Bacon,  in  whose  service  he  was  engaged 
for  some  years.  Ben  Jonson  did  not  fail  to  discover  "  the 
Star  of  Poets  "  in  these  works  ;  but  his  description  of  the 
person,  qualities,  genius,  and  individual  characteristics  of 
William  Shakespeare,  not  to  speak  of  his  criticisms  upon 
him  and  the  players,  do  not  help  to  remove  the  manifest 
contradiction  that  exists  between  the  man  and  the  works. 
The  traditions  of  his  having  been  a  member  of  Raleigh's 
Club,  and  his  wit-combats  at  the  "  Mermaid  "  (some  books 
say  "  wet-combats ")  with  Ben  Jonson  and  the  assembled 
wits,  will  not  bear  the  test  of  critical  examination:  they 
rest,  at  last,  on  mere  inference  from  the  supposed  relations, 
character,  and  genius  of  such  an  author,  and  are  as  baseless 
in  reality  as  the  conceit  of  worthy  old  Fuller,  proceeding 
upon  the  indubitable  fact  that "  his  learning  was  very  little," 
and  the  old  saw,  "  Poeta  non  fit  sed  nascitur"  that  "  as  Cor- 
nish diamonds  are  not  polished  by  any  lapidary,  but  are 
pointed  and  smoothed  even  as  they  are  taken  out  of  the 
earth,  so  Nature  itself  was  all  the  art  that  was  used  upon 
him."  l  It  was  a  shrewd  conjecture  of  Dr.  Maginn,  that 
the  reason  why  we  know  so  little  of  him  is,  that  "  when  his 
l  W&rihies  of  England,  III.  284. 


30  HIS  STUDIES. 

business  was  over  at  the  theatre,  he  did  not  mix  with  his 
fellow-actors,  but  stepped  into  his  boat,  and  rowed  up  to 
Whitehall,  there  to  spend  his  time  with  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton and  the  gentlemen  about  the  Court" 1  There  may 
be  some  truth  in  this  suggestion ;  but  it  will  be  necessary 
also  to  suppose  an  invisible  boat  and  a  further  passage  to 
Gray's  Inn. 

If  these  plays  had  not  begun  to  appear  for  a  period  of 
ten  years  or  so  after  "William  Shakespeare  came  to  London, 
it  might  be  possible  to  imagine,  that,  even  in  his  employ- 
ments, he  might  have  found  time  and  means  to  prosecute 
to  some  extent  those  studies  which  every  reasonable  mind 
must  acknowledge  to  have  been  absolutely  necessary  in 
order  to  fit  the  most  luminous  natural  genius  for  the  writ- 
ing of  these  dramas.  But  there  was  no  such  period :  the 
plays  began  to  appear  at  least  as  early  as  the  year  1588, 
even  if  it  be  not  satisfactorily  proved,  that  the  first  sketches 
of  several  of  them  had  been  upon  the  stage  for  some  years 
previous  to  that  date,  and  before  Shakespeare  arrived  in 
London.  There  were  six  years  after  this  event  in  which 
the  two  principal  poems  may  have  been  written,  and  before 
he  was  twenty-nine  years  of  age.  Doubtless,  many  poems 
of  great  merit  have  been  produced  at  an  earlier  age  than 
this :  nothing  need  be  objected  on  the  score  of  age  merely. 
Nor  would  it  be  anything  remarkable  that  an  actor  should 
correct  and  amend,  or  even  write  or  rewrite  plays.  Heming, 
or  Condell,  may  have  done  as  much  as  this.  In  fact,  some 
plays  were  written  by  other  actors  and  members  of  this 
same  company ;  but  they  appear  to  have  been  no  better 
than  such  authors  might  reasonably  be  expected  to  pro- 
duce, and  they  speedily  passed  into  oblivion.  It  might  be 
admitted  that  William  Shakespeare  may  have  altered, 
amended,  or  rewritten,  old  plays  to  adapt  them  to  his  stage, 
without  danger  to  the  question  of  this  authorship.  The 
greater  plays,  it  is  true,  were  not  produced  until  more  than 
l  Shakes.  Papers  (New  York,  1856),  p.  10. 


EARLY  PLAYS.  31 

ten  years  had  elapsed.  Of  course,  any  author  should  be 
expected  to  grow  in  this  time ;  but  there  is  exhibited,  in  the 
character  and  succession  of  these  works,  an  order  of  growth 
quite  other  than  any  that  can  be  ascribed  to  a  mortal  man 
with  the  personal  history  which  must  be  assigned  to  William 
Shakespeare ;  ascending,  as  it  does,  from  the  very  gates 
of  the  university,  upward  and  upward,  into  the  highest 
spheres  of  human  thought  and  culture. 

§  6.   EARLY   PLATS. 

Critical  researches  have  demonstrated  that  this  author 
gathered  his  materials  from  any  quarry  that  was  at  hand, 
suitable  to  his  purposes.  Old  ballads,  poems,  plays,  novels, 
tales,  histories,  in  English,  French,  Italian,  Latin,  or  Greek, 
translated  or  untranslated,  were  made  to  yield  their  treas- 
ures of  fact  and  fable.  There  had  been  an  old  play  of 
"  King  John  "  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  Some  critics  think 
that  the  u  Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John,"  printed  in 
1591,  and  written  in  two  parts,  was  an  early  work  of  this 
author,  and  the  foundation  of  the  "  King  John  "  of  the  Folio 
of  1 623  ;  but  later  writers,  no  doubt  correctly,  have  attrib- 
uted it  to  Marlowe,  Greene,  or  Peele,  or  some  other  poet, 
though  it  was  reprinted  in  1611,  and  in  1622,  with  the  ini- 
tials "  "W.  Sh."  on  the  title-page ;  doubtless  a  trick  of  the 
booksellers  to  make  it  sell.  The  "  King  John  "  of  Shake- 
speare is  first  mentioned  by  Meres  in  1598  ;  it  was  first 
printed  in  the  Folio  ;  and,  in  the  absence  of  any  other  data 
than  the  style  and  manner  of  the  composition,  on  which 
to  fix  the  date  of  its  production,  Mr.  White  places  it  in 
the  year  1596,  while  admitting  that  the  author  must  have 
had  the  older  play  before  him,  or  in  his  head,  when  this 
was  written,1  and  that  the  date  of  it  may  go  back  to  1591. 
The  old  play  called  the  "  Famous  Victories  of  Henry  the 
Fifth,"  which  was  acted  on  the  stage  prior  to  1588,  after 
having  undergone  a  marvellous  transformation,  seems  to 
l  White's  Shakes.,  VI.  15. 


82  EARLY  PLAYS. 

have  grown  into  the  two  parts  of  the  "  Henry  IV. "  and  the 
"  Henry  V."  1  The  second  and  third  parts  of  the  "  Henry 
VI."  were  first  known  by  wholly  different  titles,  and,  accord- 
ing to  Malone,  before  Shakespeare  appeared  in  London,  and 
certainly  as  early  as  1587-8.  These  also  have  been  attrib- 
uted by  some  critics  to  Marlowe,  and  by  Mr.  White  to  Mar- 
lowe, Greene,  and  Peele,  in  conjunction  with  Shakespeare  ; 2 
and  the  first  part  of  the  "  Henry  VI.,"  never  printed  until  it 
appeared  in  the  Folio,  the  "  Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  and  the 
"  Titus  Andronicus,"  have  been  placed  in  the  same  cate- 
gory by  him,  though  beyond  question  they  will  have  to  be 
assigned  to  this  author ;  and  Malone  believed  them  all  to 
have  been  upon  the  stage  at  an  earlier  date  than  1587.  Mr. 
"White  concludes,  however,  that  Shakespeare,  in  his  subse- 
quent revisions  of  these  joint  works,  merely  reclaimed  his 
own.  That  the  rejected  passages  were  inferior  to  the  parts 
retained,  or  rewritten,  and  not  above  the  powers  of  Mar- 
lowe, Greene,  or  Peele,  may  safely  enough  be  admitted ; 
nor  should  it  be  at  all  surprising  that  these  earliest  efforts 
of  a  young  author  should  be  found  to  be  somewhat  inferior 
to  his  later  works.  The  use  in  them  of  a  single  idiom 
which  was  then  growing  obsolete,  and  which  more  fre- 
quently occurs  in  Greene  than  in  any  of  his  contemporaries, 
but  which  was  not  often  used,  or  was  carefully  eliminated 
by  this  author,  together  with  some  near  equality  of  weight, 
rhythm,  and  style,  may  be  allowed  to  have  some  considera- 
tion ;  but  this  same  idiom,  on  which  so  much  stress  is  laid 
as  an  ear-mark  of  Greene,  is  found,  five  times,  within 
twenty  lines  of  one  of  Bacon's  translations  of  the  Psalms,8 
and  occasionally,  though  not  often,  in  the  plays,  as  thus :  — 

"  You  may  as  well 
Forbid  the  sea  for  to  obey  the  moon  " ;  — 

Winter's  Tale,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

1  Knight's  Studies  of  Shakes. 

a  Essay  on  the  "  Heniy  VI.,"  White's  Shakes.,  VII. 

8  Psalm  civ. 


EARLY  PLATS.  33 

and  the  whole  argument  would  seem  to  be  a  weak  founda- 
tion for  so  large  a  theory ;  especially,  if  these  plays  be  con- 
sidered as  the  first  attempt  of  a  young  writer,  and  produced 
probably  somewhere  between  1582  and  1589.  Mr.  White 
believes  that  men  have  been  hung  on  less  evidence  than 
that  which  he  produces.  It  is  indeed  very  formidable ; 
and  it  might  carry  the  jury  in  the  absence  of  better  testi- 
mony ;  it  is  nevertheless  quite  certain  that  men  have  been 
hung  on  proofs  that  seemed  equally  clear,  who  afterwards 
turned  out  to  be  innocent. 

The  *  Timon  of  Athens "  has  been  supposed  to  have 
been  founded,  in  some  part,  upon  an  older  play  of  that 
name ;  but  the  old  play  of  "  Timon,"  in  manuscript,  and 
apparently  written  by  "  a  scholar,"  which  was  thought  by 
Steevens  to  have  been  transcribed  about  the  year  1600, 
and  which  came  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Dyce,  according  to 
the  opinion  of  Mr.  Knight  and  other  critics,  was  evidently 
never  written  by  Shakespeare  at  all.  Even  in  the  face  of 
facts  like  these,  Malone  could  not  persuade  himself  that 
Shakespeare  could  have  begun  to  write  before  the  year 
1590  ;  nor  Mr.  Collier,  that  he  could  have  had  any  reputa- 
tion as  an  author  before  1593.  They  suppose  these  older 
plays  to  have  been  written  by  other  authors,  and  that  they 
were  only  retouched  by  Shakespeare.  Whether  they  were 
the  work  of  this  author,  or  another,  it  is  certain,  at  least, 
that  they  were  afterwards  taken  up  by  him,  and  carefully 
elaborated  into  the  plays  which  we  now  have.  The  "  Timon 
of  Athens"  of  Shakespeare  was,  doubtless,  an  original 
work  of  a  much  later  date. 

A  cloud  of  obscurity  hangs  over  the  origin  and  early  his- 
tory of  these  older  plays.  These  conclusions  would  seem 
to  be  sufficiently  well  warranted  by  the  facts  which  we 
know  :  first,  that  some  of  these  old  plays  were  original  first 
draughts  of  this  author,  and  that  some  of  them  may  have 
been  based  upon  older  plays  of  other  authors ;  and  second, 
that,  in  either  case,  they  were  already  upon  the  stage  at  the 


34  EARLY  PLATS. 

date  usually  assigned  for  the  arrival  of  "William  Shake- 
speare in  London.  But,  as  that  date  is  not  quite  certain, 
and  as  it  is  not  impossible  that  he  may  have  sent  plays  to 
the  theatre  before  that  event,  nothing  more  definite  can  be 
positively  asserted  than  this,  that,  as  Francis  Bacon  was  by 
some  three  years  the  elder  of  the  two,  and  had  been  snugly 
ensconced  in  Gray's  Inn  since  1579,  with  the  aroma  of  a 
scholar  of  Trinity  and  the  airs  of  the  French  Court  still 
about  him,  it  is  at  least  more  probable,  in  the  first  instance, 
that  he  should  have  been  the  author  than  the  other. 

The  "  Hamlet "  has  been  another  of  these  enigmas.  The 
first  certain  knowledge  that  we  have  of  this  play  is,  that  it 
was  performed  at  the  Globe  as  early  as  1602,  having  been 
entered,  in  July  of  that  year,  upon  the  Register  of  the 
Stationers'  Company,  as  "  lately  acted  by  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain's Servants."  We  may  safely  accept  the  conclusion 
of  Mr.  "White,1  that  there  was  an  older  play  of  this  name 
by  another  author,  which  was  upon  the  stage  in  London 
prior  to  this  date.  It  is  mentioned  in  Henslowe's  "  Diary  " 
in  1594.  It  was  no  doubt  this  older  play  that  was  alluded 
to,  in  1596,  by  Dr.  Lodge,  who  speaks  of  the  ghost  that 
cried  in  the  theatre,  "  Hamlet,  revenge ! "  It  is  believed 
by  "White,  Knight,  and  other  critics,  to  have  been  the  same 
play  that  was  referred  to,  in  1589,  by  Nash,  who  says,  "  it 
is  a  common  practice,  now-a-days,  amongst  a  shifting  sort 
of  companions  that  run  through  every  art  and  thrive  by 
none,  to  leave  the  trade  of  Noverint,  whereto  they  were 
born,  and  busy  themselves  with  the  endeavours  of  art,"  and 

that  "  English  Seneca,  read  by  candle-light, will 

afford  you  whole  Hamlets  ;  I  should  say  handfuls  of  tragi- 
cal speeches."  In  the  "  Hamlet "  of  Shakespeare,  which 
was  printed  in  1604,  we  have  these  words :  — 

"  Seneca  cannot  be  too  heavy,  nor  Plautus  too  light  for  the  law  of  writ, 
and  the  liberty:  these  are  the  only  men."  2 

i  White's  Shakes.,  XL  8-9. 

2  Devonshire  Hamlets,  (Lond.  1860),  I.  41;  II.  38. 


EARLY  PLAYS.  35 

But,  as  it  is  very  probable  that  there  was  some  trace  of 
Seneca,  also,  in  the  older  play  of  1589,  this  allusion,  in  that 
of  1602,  cannot  be  taken  as  any  proof  of  its  identity  with 
the  other.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  however,  that,  in^ 
the  year  1593-4,  we  find  Francis  Bacon  diligently  engaged 
in  reading  Seneca,  Ovid,  Virgil,  Horace's  "Art  Poetic," 
the  "  Proverbs,"  and  the  "  Adagia  "  of  Erasmus,  and  taking 
notes ;  and,  in  1595-6,  he  quotes  Seneca,  thus :  "  For  it  is 
Seneca's  rule,  multum  non  midta.'' 1  And  in  several  of  the 
earlier  plays  may  be  found  very  distinct  traces  of  this  clas- 
sical reading,  in  the  form  of  allusions,  imitations,  and  quo- 
tations ;  as  for  instance,  in  the  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  in 
which  the  story  of  Tereus  and  Philomela  is  worked  into 
the  texture  of  the  tragedy  out  of  Ovid's  "  Metamorphoses," 
together  with  quotations  of  whole  lines  of  Latin  verse  out 
of  Horace.  In  the  "  Love's  Labor 's  Lost,"  we  have  quo- 
tations from  Virgil,  Horace,  and  Ovid,  an  irrepressible 
sprinkling  of  Latin  erudition,  with  a  pretty  copious  inter- 
spersion  of  sonnets  and  rhymed  verse  ;  and  the  whole  play 
exhibits  unmistakable  impressions  of  the  author's  late  resi- 
dence at  the  French  Court.  In  the  "  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,"  written  before  1594,  the  author  has  already  begun 
to  add  to  his  studies  of  the  poets  "  that  part  of  philosophy  " 

which  treats 

"  of  happiness 

By  virtue  'specially  to  be  achieved," 

and  to  mingle  Aristotle  with  Ovid :  — 

"  Tranio.    Mi  perdonate,  gentle  master  mine, 
I  am  in  all  affected  as  yourself; 
Glad  that  you  thus  continue  your  resolve 
To  suck  the  sweets  of  sweet  philosophy. 
Only,  good  master,  while  we  do  admire 
This  virtue,  and  this  moral  discipline, 
Let 's  be  no  stoics,  nor  no  stocks,  I  pray, 
Or  so  devote  to  Aristotle's  checks, 
As  Ovid  be  an  outcast  quite  abjured : 
Balk  logic  with  acquaintance  that  you  have, 

1  Advice  to  Greville ;  Life  and  Letters,  by  Spedding,  II.  23. 


36  EARLY  PLAYS. 

And  practice  rhetoric  in  your  common  talk : 

Music  and  poetry  use  to  quicken  you; 

The  mathematics,  and  the  metaphysics, 

Fall  to  them  as  you  find  your  stomach  serves  you ; 

No  profit  grows  where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en ;  — 

In  brief,  sir,  study  what  you  most  affect." 

Act  J.  Sc.  1. 

Lord  Campbell,1  assuming  that  the  "  Hamlet "  alluded  to 
by  Nash  was  the  play  of  Shakespeare,  endeavors  to  draw 
an  argument  from  Nash's  fling  at  the  trade  of  Noverint 
(that  of  the  lawyers)  in  support  of  the  position  that  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare  himself  was  considered  as  one  of  those 
who  had  abandoned  that  profession.  We  know  from  con- 
temporaneous history  that  it  was  not  an  uncommon  thing, 
in  those  days,  for  members  of  the  Inns  of  Court  to  be  writ- 
ing for  the  stage,  and  it  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  there 
was  then  in  fact  a  class  of  persons  answering  perfectly  well 
to  this  description  of  Nash.  But  the  inference,  first,  that 
Nash  alluded  to  Shakespeare,  and  second,  that  Shakespeare 
had  been  a  student  at  law  at  Stratford,  finds  little  warrant 
here,  or  elsewhere,  beyond  the  irresistible  evidence,  con- 
tained in  the  plays  themselves,  that  their  author  was  a  law- 
yer. No  more  is  it  to  be  inferred  that  Francis  Bacon  was 
the  person  intended,  though  he  was  at  that  time  Reader, 
and  for  seven  years  had  been  an  utter  barrister,  of  Gray's 
Inn.  Whether  the  play  were  the  same  or  not,  it  is  plain 
that  Nash  supposed  it  to  have  been  written  by  a  lawyer. 

This  epistle  of  Nash  had  been  appended  to  the  "  Mena- 
phon  "  of  Robert  Greene,  who  had  been  employed  as  a 
writer  for  the  stage ;  and  Lord  Campbell  conjectures  that 
the  two  friends,  Nash  and  Greene,  had  been  superseded 
by  the  appearance  of  a  rival  in  the  business,  and  thence, 
that  this  attack  was  aimed  at  William  Shakespeare,  as  that 
other  more  express  libel,  which  was  contained  in  the 
"  Groat's  Worth  of  Wit,"  written  by  this  same  Greene,  and 
published  by  Henry  Chettle,  in  1592,  undoubtedly  was. 
In  this  last,  Greene  addresses  himself  to  his  "  Quondam 
1  Shakes.  Legal  Acquirements,  30-36. 


EARLY  PLAYS.  37 

acquaintance  that  spend  their  wits  in  making  Plays," 
and  says,  "  Base-minded  men,  all  three  of  you  [Marlowe, 
Lodge,  and  Peele  ?],  if  by  my  misery  yee  bee  not  warned  : 
for  unto  none  of  you  (like  me)  sought  these  burs  to  cleave : . 
those  Puppets  (I  mean)  that  speake  from  our  mouths,  those 
Anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours.  Is  it  not  strange  that  I, 
to  whome  they  all  have  bin  beholding,  is  it  not  like  that 
you,  to  whom  they  all  have  bin  beholding,  shall  (were  yee 
in  that  case  that  I  am  now)  be  both  of  them  at  once  for- 
saken ?  Yes,  trust  them  not ;  for  there  is  an  upstart  crow 
beautified  with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygres  heart, 
wrapt  in  a  players  hyde,  supposes  hee  is  as  well  able  to 
bombast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you  ;  and  beeing 
an  absolute  Johannes  factotum,  is,  in  his  owne  conceyt,  the 
only  Shake-scene  in  a  countrey.  Oh,  that  I  might  intreat 
your  rare  wittes  to  bee  imployed  in  more  profitable  courses, 
and  let  these  apes  imitate  your  past  excellence,  and  never 
more  acquaynte  them  with  your  admyred  inventions." 1 
This  passage  would  seem  to  carry  a  direct  insinuation  that 
"William  Shakespeare,  a  mere  actor,  antic,  and  ape,  was 
undertaking  to  shine  in  borrowed  feathers,  or  it  may  mean 
no  more  than  that  he  was,  in  Greene's  estimation,  an  up- 
start player  that  had  presumed  to  usurp  the  writer's  calling. 
Mr.  White  has  noticed  that  it  contains  a  sort  of  parody  on 
the  following  line  of  the  third  part  of  the  "  Henry  VI."  : — 

"  0  Tiger's  heart  wrapp'd  in  a  woman's  hide!  "  2 

Whence  it  would  appear  that  Greene  had  that  very  play  in 
mind :  nothing  more  need  be  inferred,  however,  than  that 
plays  had  begun  to  appear  upon  the  stage,  which,  so  far  as 
known  to  these  writers,  were  attributed  to  Shakespeare  ; 
came  through  his  hands,  perhaps,  and  from  a  source  other- 
wise unknown  to  them  ;  and  that  if  they  really  took  him  to 
be  the  author  (as  it  seems  they  did),  they  were  unwilling 
to  recognize  him  as  one  worthy  to  be  admitted  into  their 

1  Halliwell's  Life  of  Shakes.,  144. 

2  Act  I.  Sc.  4;  White's  Shakes.,  VII.  411. 


38  EARLY  PLAYS. 

fraternity.  Mr.  "White  argues  further,  with  much  skill,  that 
Greene  meant  to  charge  Shakespeare  with  plagiarism,  also, 
from  the  rival  poets,  and  cites  as  evidence  of  this  hypoth- 
esis a  sonnet  from  "  Greene's  Funerals  by  R.  B.  Gent " 
(1594),  which  says  of  Greene :  — 

"  Nay  more,  the  men  that  so  eclipst  his  fame, 
Purloyned  his  Plumes,  can  they  deny  the  same?  " 

But  this  is  a  general  charge,  aimed  at  more  than  one,  and 
not  particularly  at  Shakespeare.  The  apology  of  Chettle, 
however,  makes  it  clear,  that  in  the  above  passage  from 
Greene,  a  sneer  was  aimed  especially  at  him  in  respect  of 
his  supposed  authorship  ;  for  it  says  :  "  I  am  as  sorry  as  if 
the  originall  fault  had  beene  my  fault,  because  myselfe 
have  seene  his  demeanor  no  less  civill  than  he  excellent  in 
the  qualitie  he  professes ;  besides,  divers  of  worship  have 
reported  his  uprightness  of  dealing  which  argues  his  hon- 
esty, and  his  facetious  grace  in  writing  that  approoves  his 
art."  Now,  whether  these  "  divers  of  worship  "  were  some 
great  persons  about  the  Court,  who  had  taken  Shakespeare 
under  their  especial  protection,  or  were  merely  some 
respectable  acquaintances  who  had  certified  to  his  merit 
and  character,  must  be  left  to  conjecture.  Mr.  White 
appeals  to  these  passages  in  further  proof  of  his  theory, 
that  Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Peele,  wrote  some  plays  in 
conjunction  with  Shakespeare,  and  that  Shakespeare,  in 
resuming  his  own,  had  in  some  degree  appropriated  their 
labors,  and  purloined  their  plumes  ;  and  he  certainly  makes 
a  very  plausible  case  of  it.  But  it  implies  the  assumption, 
both  that  William  Shakespeare,  in  conjunction  with  those 
writers,  in  fact  wrote  the  original  draughts  of  those  plays, 
and  that  it  was  he  who  afterwards  re-wrote  and  completed 
them ;  and  against  these  assumptions,  the  whole  mass  of 
evidence  to  be  presented  herein  must  stand  arrayed  ;  for  it 
would  be  idle  to  imagine  that  Francis  Bacon  ever  wrote  a 
play  in  conjunction  with  either  of  them. 

On  the  supposition  that  these  plays  came  from  Gray's 


EARLY  PLAYS.  39 

Inn,  and  were  the  earlier  attempts  of  a  briefless  young  bar- 
rister, who  did  not  desire  to  be  known  as  a  writer  for  the 
stage,  and  who  meant  to  "  profess  not  to  be  a  poet,"  *  but 
to  whom  any  "  lease  of  quick  revenue " 2  might  not  be 
unacceptable,  and  some  cover  a  practical  necessity,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  imagine,  that  this  "  absolute  Johannes  factotum  " 
would  be  just  the  man  to  suit  his  purpose  ;  nor  is  it  neces- 
sary to  suppose  that  an  express  bargain  was  struck  in  terms 
between  them,  in  the  first  instance,  but  rather  that  the 
arrangement  came  about  gradually  in  the  course  of  time 
and  the  actual  progress  of  events.  Nor  would  it  be  a 
matter  of  wonder  that  his  sudden  pretensions  to  dramatic 
authorship  should  be  sneered  at  by  a  rival  who  saw  him- 
self completely  outdone  (as  he  would  suppose)  by  a  mere 
under-actor,  a  puppet,  an  antic,  and  an  ape.  And  when 
secret  relations  of  this  kind  had  once  come  to  be  estab- 
lished between  the  parties,  the  scheme  of  introducing  to 
the  public  the  two  larger  poems,  a  few  years  later,  under 
the  disguise  of  a  dedication  in  his  name  as  a  closer  cover 
for  the  real  author,  may  have  been  the  more  practicable. 
How  this  was  possible  with  so  eminent  a  person  as  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  will  be  further  considered  hereinafter; 
observing,  now,  that  Southampton  was  an  intimate  associate 
of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  of  Francis  Bacon,  Essex's  friend 
and  counsellor,  at  this  very  time,  and  that  there  is  not  the 
least  allusion  to  William  Shakespeare  in  all  the  writings  of 
Bacon,  though,  as  we  know  from  direct  history,  he  was  an 
intimate  friend  and  patron  of  Ben  Jonson,  was  a  friend  and 
admirer  of  George  Herbert  and  other  poets  of  the  time, 
was  familiar  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  was  an  admir- 
able orator  and  wit,  was  "  a  poetic  imaginator,"  a  lover  and 
student  of  poetry,  and  himself  a  poet. 

Prior  to  the  date  of  these  dedications  (1593-4),  the  name  i 
of  William  Shakespeare  had  not  appeared  on  the  title-page 
of  any  printed  play.     It  is  not  until  1598  that  his  name  / 
1  Bacon's  Apology  concerning  Essex.  2  Letter  of  Bacon. 


40  EARLY  PLAYS. 

begins  to  be  printed  on  the  title-page  of  the  quartos.  The 
author  was  not  named  on  the  title-page  of  the  first  printed 
editions  of  the  "  Richard  II.,"  the  "  Richard  III.,"  and  the 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  in  1597  ;  nor  on  that  of  the  first  part  of 

Ithe  "  Henry  IV.,"  printed  in  1598,  nor  on  that  of  the  "  Henry 
V.,"  first  printed  in  1600.  The  "Love's  Labor's  Lost," 
"  newly  corrected  and  augmented,"  and  the  second  editions 
of  the  "  Richard  H."  and  the  "  Richard  HI.,"  that  were 
j  printed  in  1598,  bore  the  name  of  Shakespeare  on  the  title- 
page  ;  and  so  did  the  sonnets  and  poems  collected  and 
published  by  Jaggard,  in  1599,  under  the  title  of  the  "  Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim."  But,  after  this  date,  the  quartos  appear, 
in  most  instances,  at  least,  as  "  written,"  or  as  "  newly  cor- 
rected and  augmented,"  or  "newly  set  forth  and  over- 
seene,"  by  William  Shakespeare.  It  is  in  1598  that  Meres, 
in  the  "  Wit's  Treasury,"  names  "  the  mellifluous  and  honey- 
tongued  Shakespeare,"  in  whom  "  the  sweete  witty  soul  of 
Ovid  lives,"  as  "  witness  his  '  Venus  and  Adonis,'  his  '  Lu- 
crece,'  and  his  '  sugred  sonnets '  among  his  private  friends  " ; 
and  he  mentions  the  "  Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  the  "  Errors," 
the  "  Love's  Labor 's  Lost,"  the  "  Love's  Lahor  's  Wonne," 
the  "  Midsummer's  Night  Dreame,"  the  "  Merchant  of 
Venice,"  the  "  Richard  II.,"  the  "  Richard  III.,"  the  "  Henry 
IV.,"  the  "  King  John,"  the  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  and  the 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet."  Of  all  the  pieces  named  by  Meres, 
the  two  poems  only  had  been  printed  under  the  name  of 
Shakespeare  before  that  year.  And  it  is  in  1599  that 
Weever  writes :  — 

"  Honie-tongued  Shakespeare,  when  I  saw  thine  issue, 
I  swore  Apollo  got  them,  and  none  other  " ; 

but  he  speaks  only  of  the  "  fire  hot  Venus,"  the  "  chaste 
Lucretia,"  and 

"  Romeo,  Richard,  more  whose  name3  I  know  not." l 

In   1594,  Willobie's  "Avisa"  alludes  to  the  Rape  of 
Lucrece :  — 

iLife,  by  Halliwell,  189. 


EARLY  PLAYS.  41 

"  Yet  Tarquyne  pluct  his  glistering  grape, 
And  Shakespeare  paints  poor  Lucrece  rape." 

In  the  margin  of  the  "  Polimanteia  "  (1595),  we  find  these 
words :  "  All  praise,  Lucretia  —  sweet  Shakespeare."  And 
soon  after  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  in  1603,  this  same 
Chettle,  silenced  before,  but  evidently  by  no  means  satis- 
fied, noticing  that,  among  many  tributes  to  the  virtues  of 
the  late  Queen,  none  came  from  William  Shakespeare,  I 
ventured  to  break  out  anew  in  these  lines  :  — 

"  Nor  doth  the  silver-tongued  Melicert 
Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one  sable  tear, 
To  mourn  her  death  that  graced  his  desert, 
And  to  his  laies  open'd  her  royall  eare : 
Shepheard,  remember  our  Elizabeth, 
And  sing  her  rape,  done  by  that  Tarquin,  Death."  * 

But  down  to  the  year  1598,  nothing  definite  anywhere  ap- 
pears, except  these  dedications  to  Southampton,  and  these 
allusions  which  followed  them,  on  which  to  base  the  claim 
of  this  authorship  for  "William  Shakespeare,  beyond  the 
bare  fact  that  the  plays  were  upon  the  stage  in  the  theatres 
with  which  he  was  connected,  and  were  generally  attrib- 
uted to  him.  He  had  already  become  a  principal  sharer 
and  manager,  had  purchased  New  Place  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  and  was  able  to  loan  money  to  his  friends.  His 
wealth  had  been  derived  from  the  theatres  of  his  company, 
and  his  success  was  due,  in  no  small  degree,  perhaps,  to 
the  superior  excellence  of  these  plays.  After  this  dedi- 
cation of  the  poems  under  his  name,  an  undiscriminating 
public  might  be  very  well  warranted  in  taking  him  to  be 
the  author  of  the  plays  also.  If  the  plays  came  to  the 
theatre  through  his  hands,  his  fellow-actors  would,  of 
course,  presume  that  he  was  himself  the  author  of  them, 
however  much  they  might  wonder  that  he  never  blotted 
out  a  line.  They  had  to  be  attributed  to  somebody,  and 
William  Shakespeare  does  not  appear  to  have  declined  the 
honor  of  their  paternity.     Greene  might  sneer,  Nash  insin- 

1  Mourning  Garment,  1603. 


42  EARLY  PLAYS. 

uate,  and  Ben  Jonson  criticize  ;  but  he  was  under  the  protec- 
tion of  "  divers  of  worship,"  and  his  reputation  soon  became 
established  among  the  printers.  It  was  Shakespeare's  thea- 
tre, and  naturally  enough  they  were  Shakespeare's  plays. 

As  to  the  sonnets,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  a 
reputation  might  arise  in  a  similar  manner.  We  know 
that  in  that  age,  when  the  art  of  printing  had  not  as  yet 
entirely  superseded  the  circulation  of  manuscript  copies, 
it  was  a  common  thing  for  various  writings  to  be  pass- 
ing about  from  hand  to  hand  in  manuscript.  Says  John 
Florio,  who  translated  Montaigne's  Essays  in  1600,  and 
was  tutor  to  Prince  Charles,  and  must  have  known  some- 
thing of  Shakespeare,  and  was  doubtless  well  acquainted 
with  Francis  Bacon,  in  his  preface  to  the  "World  of 
Words,"  printed  in  1598 :  "  There  is  another  sort  of  leer- 
ing crows  that  rather  snarl  than  bite,  whereof  I  could  in- 
stance in  one,  who,  lighting  on  a  good  sonnet  of  a  gentle- 
man's, a  friend  of  mine,  that  loved  better  to  be  a  poet  than 
to  be  counted  so,  called  the  author  a  rhymer."  This  may 
not  have  been  Francis  Bacon,  but  we  know  that  Bacon 
wrote  sonnets :  some  of  them  were  addressed  to  the  Queen, 
and  were  "  commended  by  the  great."  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
had  written  sonnets.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  wrote  sonnets. 
Thomas  Carew,  a  gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber  under 
Charles  I.,  was  a  noted  writer  of  sonnets.  It  was  probably 
not  an  uncommon  thing  for  manuscript  sonnets  to  be  cir- 
culating among  great  persons  at  this  time.  Indeed,  we 
positively  know  that  Bacon's  sonnets  and  essays  did  pass 
from  hand  to  hand,  in  that  manner.  The  researches  of 
Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon  have  ascertained  the  fact,  that  "  a 
few  essays,  a  few  Religious  Meditations,  with  some  other 
short  pieces  of  his  composition,  were  passing,  as  Shakes- 
peare's sugared  sonnets  and  Raleigh's  fugitive  verses  were 
at  the  same  time  passing,  from  hand  to  hand  ;  but  a  rogue 
of  a  printer  being  about  to  publish  these  scraps,  their 
author,  in  fear  of  imperfect  copies,  put  them  with  his  own 


EARLY  PLAYS.  43 

hands  to  the  press." *  And  thus  the  first  edition  of  the  Es- 
says came  to  be  printed,  under  Bacon's  own  hand,  in  1597. 
In  1599,  Jaggard,  printer  of  several  editions  of  the  Essays 
between  1606  and  162-4,  had  somehow  come  into  posses- 
sion of  a  collection  of  sonnets  and  smaller  poems,  which  he 
published  under  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare ;  and 
in  1609,  a  larger  collection  was  dedicated  to  "Mr.  TV.  H., 
the  only  begetter  of  them,"  (on  whom  is  invoked  by  the 
printer's  preface  "all  happiness  and  that  Eternity  prom- 
ised by  our  ever-living  poet"),  believed  by  Mr.  Collier, 
no  doubt  correctly,  to  have  been  William  Herbert,  son  of 
Henry,  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  his  celebrated  Countess, 

"  Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother; " 
who  succeeded  to  the  earldom  in  1601,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  and  was  himself  a  poet,  a  writer  of  sonnets, 
and  "  a  great  patron  of  learning ; " 2  was  an  associate  of 
Essex  and  Southampton,  and  is  said  to  have  been  a  rival, 
with  Bacon  and  Coke,  for  the  hand  of  the  rich  widow 
Hatton  ;  and  was  a  friend  of  Bacon,  a  witness  to  his  patent 
of  peerage,  and  one  of  that  "  incomparable  pair  of  breth- 
ren," to  whom  was  dedicated  the  Folio  of  1623 ;  for,  these 
plays,  also,  the  author  himself  would  take  care  to  see  pub- 
lished in  authentic  form,  though  in  this  instance  under  the 
name  of  another ;  for  he  had  determined  not  to  be  known 
as  a  poet;  yet,  as  he  himself  said  of  the  first  edition  of  the 
Essays,  in  the  Epistle  Dedicatory  to  his  brother  Anthony,3 
"like  some  that  have  an  orchard  ill-neighboured,  that 
gather  their  fruit  before  it  is  ripe  to  prevent  stealing,"  or 
rather,  as  we  may  suppose,  in  the  case  of  the  plays,  to 
preserve  the  ripe  fruit  and  prevent  it  from  being  corrupted 
by  stolen  and  mangled  copies,  or  from  being  by  mere 
neglect  wholly  lost  to  the  world.     And  this  epistle  con- 

i  Story  of  Lord  Bacon's  Life,  by  W.  Hepworth  Dixon.    London,  1862, 
p.  114. 
2  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.  II.  482;  I.  523. 
8  Works,  (Boston,)  XII.  289. 


44  EARLY  PLAYS. 

cerning  the  Essays  may  throw  still  further  light  on  the 
whole  subject,  proceeding  thus :  — 

"  These  fragments  of  my  conceits  were  going  to  print : 
to  labour  the  stay  of  them  had  been  troublesome,  and  sub- 
ject to  interpretation  ;  to  let  them  pass  had  been  to  adven- 
ture the  wrong  they  might  receive  by  untrue  copies,  or  by 
some  garnishment,  which  it  might  please  any  that  should 
set  them  forth  to  bestow  upon  them.  Therefore  I  held  it 
best  discretion  to  publish  them  myself,  as  they  passed  long 
ago  from  my  pen,  without  any  further  disgrace,  than  the 
weakness  of  the  author.  And  as  I  did  ever  hold,  there 
might  be  as  great  a  vanity  in  retiring  and  withdrawing 
men's  conceits  (except  they  be  of  some  nature)  from  the 
world,  as  in  obtruding  them :  so  in  these  particulars  I 
have  played  myself  the  Inquisitor,  and  find  nothing  to  my 
understanding  in  them  contrary  or  infectious  to  the  state 
of  Religion,  or  manners,  but  rather  (as  I  suppose)  medi- 
cinable.  Only  I  disliked  now  to  put  them  out  because  they 
will  be  like  the  late  new  half-pence,  which  though  the 
Silver  were  good,  yet  the  pieces  were  small.  But  since 
they  would  not  stay  with  their  Master,  but  would  needs 
travel  abroad,  I  have  preferred  them  to  you  that  are  next 
to  myself,  dedicating  them,  such  as  they  are,  to  our  love, 
in  the  depth  whereof  (I  assure  you)  I  sometimes  wish  your 
infirmities  translated  upon  myself,  that  her  Majesty  might 
have  the  service  of  so  active  and  able  a  mind,  and  I  might 
be  with  excuse  confined  to  these  contemplations  and  studies 
for  which  I  am  fittest" 

And  the  circumstances  under  which  the  "Troilus  and 
Cressida,"  that  "  remarkable  and  singular  production,"  as 
it  is  styled  by  Mr.  Verplanck,  first  made  its  appearance,  in 
1609,  are  worthy  of  note  in  this  connection.  It  appears 
that  an  older  play  of  this  name,  perhaps  an  earlier  sketch 
of  this  very  one  (as  Mr.  Verplanck  seems  to  think,  though 
there  is  much  reason  to  believe  it  was  by  another  author 
altogether),  had  been  entered  upon  the  Stationers'  Regis- 


EARLY  PLAYS.  45 

ter  in  1602-3,  but  never  printed;  but  before  1609,  it  must 
have  been  greatly  enlarged  and  improved  (if  indeed  this 
were  not  wholly  a  new  play)  in  the  most  matured  style  of 
this  master ;  and  it  was  first  presented  before  the  King's 
Majesty  at  Court,  in  that  year,  and  thence  sent  directly 
to  the  printer,  and  was  printed  with  a  preface,  and  with 
the  name  of  William  Shakespeare  on  the  title-page,  before 
it  had  ever  appeared  at  the  theatre.1  The  printer's  preface 
(and,  of  course,  the  printer  would  expect  the  author  him- 
self to  furnish  the  preface  as  well  then  as  now)  announces 
it  thus :  — 

"  A  never  writer  to  an  ever  reader. 

KEWES. 

Eternall  reader  [a  "never  writer"  must  have  meant 
one  never  known  to  the  public  as  a  writer  of  plays,  and 
could  not  well  be  "William  Shakespeare  himself  who  was 
writing  so  much  for  the  ever-reading  public],  you  have 
heere  a  new  play  never  stal'd  with  the  stage,  never  clapper- 
clawed with  the  palmes  of  the  vulger,  and  yet  passing  full 
of  the  palme  comicall ;  for  it  is  a  birth  of  your  braine,  that 
never  undertooke  any  thing  comicall  vainely :  and  were 
but  the  vaine  names  of  commedies  changde  for  the  titles 
of  commodities,  or  of  playes  for  pleas  [mind  still  running 
on  pleas],  you  should  see  all  those  grand  censors,  that 
now  stile  them  such  vanities,  flock  to  them  for  the  main 
grace  of  their  gravities  ["  we  cannot  but  know  their  dig- 
nity greater,  than  to  descend  to  the  reading  of  these 
trifles,"  says  the  Dedication  to  the  Folio,  and  "I  have 
done  with  such  vanities,"  says  Bacon,  in  answer  to  a  sum- 
mons to  the  House  of  Lords,  some  time  afterwards]  ;  espe- 
cially this  author's  commedies,  that  are  so  fram'd  to  the 
life.  ["  Painter.  It  is  a  pretty  mocking  of  the  life  ; "  2  and 
says  Bacon,  "  I  must  do  contrary  to  that  that  painters  do ; 

i  White's  Shakes.,  IX.  1-16;  Papers  of  the  Shakes.  Soc,  III.  79.  London. 
2  Timon  of  Athens,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


46  EARLY  PLAYS. 

for  they  desire  to  make  the  picture  to  the  life,  and  I  must 
endeavour  to  make  the  life  to  the  picture,"  *]  that  they 
serve  for  the  most  common  commentaries  of  all  the  actions 
of  our  lives,  showing  such  a  dexteritie,  and  power  of  witte, 
that  the  most  displeased  with  playes  are  pleased  with  his 
commedies,  [says  Bacon's  letter  to  the  King  (1621), 
"  Cardinal  Wolsey  said  that  if  he  had  pleased  God  as 
he  pleased  the  King,  he  had  not  been  ruined.  My  con- 
science saith  no  such  thing ;  for  I  know  not  but  in  serving 
you,  I  served  God  in  one.  But  it  may  be  if  I  had  pleased 
God,  as  I  had  pleased  you,  it  would  have  been  better  for 
me "].  ...  So  much  and  such  savord  salt  of  witte  is  in 
his  commedies,  that  they  seem  (for  their  height  of  pleasure 
["  it  hath  been  the  height  of  our  care,"  says  the  Dedica- 
tion again])  to  be  borne  in  that  sea  that  brought  forth 
Venus.  Amongst  all  there  is  none  more  witty  than  this ; 
and  had  I  time,  I  would  comment  upon  it,  though  I  know 
it  needs  not,  (for  so  much  as  will  make  you  thinke  your 
testern  well  bestow'd,)  but  for  so  much  worth,  as  even 
poore  I  know  to  be  stuft  in  it  [certainly  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  that,  your  worship.]  It  deserves  such  a  labour, 
as  well  as  the  best  commedy  in  Terence  or  Plautus :  and 
believe  this,  that  when  hee  is  gone,  and  his  commedies  out 
of  sale,  you  will  scramble  for  them,  and  set  up  a  new 
English  inquisition  [some  twelve  years  before,  the  Dedi- 
catory Epistle  to  the  Essays  had  said,  "  so  in  these  particu- 
lars I  have  played  myself  the  Inquisitor  "].  Take  this  for 
a  warning,  and  at  the  perill  of  your  pleasures  losse,  and 
judgments,  refuse  not,  nor  like  this  the  lesse  for  not  being 
sullied  with  the  smoaky  breath  of  the  multitude ;  but  thanke 
fortune  for  the  'scape  it  hath  made  amongst  you.  Since 
by  the  grand  possessors'  wills,  I  believe,  you  should  have 
prayd  for  them,  rather  than  beene  prayd.  And  so  I 
leave  all  such  to  bee  prayd  for  (for  the  states  of  their  wits 
healths)  that  will  not  praise  it.  —  Vale." 
i  Letter,  1619. 


EARLY  PLAYS.  47 

It  is  positively  asserted  here,  that  the  play  was  a  new 
one,  and  that  it  had  never  been  upon  the  stage,  nor  been 
sullied  with  the  smoky  breath  of  the  multitude.  The  writer 
must  have  known  this.  It  was  first  produced  at  Court, 
and  was  no  doubt  addressed  rather  to  the  refined  and 
learned  personages  that  would  be  there  assembled  to  hear 
it,  than  to  the  unlettered  multitude ;  and  these  being  "  the 
grand  possessors,"  and  the  play  being  such  as  he  knew  it 
to  be,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  tell  the  public,  that  they  might 
be  thankful  that  they  ever  got  it  at  all,  and,  if  they  knew 
what  was  good  for  themselves,  they  should  rather  pray  to 
have  it  than  be  prayed  to  take  it ;  and  this  is  as  true  to- 
day as  it  was  then  ;  for  as  we  know,  it  seldom  appears  upon 
the  public  stage,  though  full  of  the  loftiest  wisdom. 

But  very  soon  after  it  was  printed,  it  found  its  way  to 
the  theatre,  and  shortly  after  it  had  appeared  upon  the 
stage,  and  in  the  same  year,  a  second  edition  was  issued 
from  the  same  type,  only  suppressing  this  preface,  and 
announcing  the  play  on  the  title-page  "  as  it  was  acted  by 
the  King's  Majesty's  Servants  at  the  Globe :  Written  by 
William  Shakespeare."  It  had  now  come  to  be  a  Shakes- 
peare's play.  From  this  significant  allusion  to  the  "  grand 
possessors'  wills,"  both  Tieck  and  Knight  have  inferred 
that  the  manuscript  came  from  the  possession,  or  control, 
either  of  the  King  himself,  or  of  some  great  personage 
about  the  Court,  and  that  Shakespeare  had  written  this 
"  wonderful  comedy  "  for  that  person  and  for  the  use  of 
the  revels  at  Court,  and  not  for  the  public  stage ;  an  in- 
ference, which  would  seem  to  carry  upon  its  face  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  forced  construction.  In  view  of  all  that  will 
be  offered  herein  touching  the  question  of  this  authorship, 
it  may  appear  more  probable,  and  these  very  facts  may 
give  us  some  intimation,  that  the  great  personage  in  ques- 
tion was  himself  the  author  of  the  play,  being  no  other 
(as  it  will  be  shown)  than  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  then  lately 
become  Solicitor-General.    At  least,  not  inconsistent  with 


48  EARLY  PLAYS. 

this  conclusion,  is  Mr.  Verplanck's  excellent  appreciation 
of  the  play  itself,  in  these  words :  — 

"  Its  beauties  are  of  the  highest  order.  It  contains  pas- 
sages fraught  with  moral  truth  and  political  wisdom  —  high 
truths,  in  large  and  philosophical  discourse,  such  as  re- 
mind us  of  the  loftiest  disquisitions  of  Hooker,  or  Jeremy 
Taylor,  on  the  foundations  of  social  law.  Thus  the  com- 
ments of  Ulysses  (Act  I.  Sc.  3)  on  the  universal  obligation 
of  the  law  of  order  and  degree,  and  the  confusion  caused 
by  rebellion  to  its  rule,  either  in  nature  or  in  society,  are 
in  the  very  spirit  of  the  grandest  and  most  instructive  elo- 
quence of  Burke.  The  piece  abounds  too  in  passages  of 
the  most  profound  and  persuasive  practical  ethics,  and 
grave  advice  for  the  government  of  life ;  as  when  in  the 
third  act,  Ulysses  (the  great  didactic  organ  of  the  play)  im- 
presses upon  Achilles  the  consideration  of  man's  ingrati- 
tude 'for  good  deeds  past,'  and  the  necessity  of  perse- 
verance to  '  keep  honor  bright.' " 

And  in  further  confirmation  of  this  view,  we  find  in  this 
play  one  of  those  numerous  instances  of  similarity,  not  to 
say  identity,  of  thought  and  language,  which,  independent 
of  extraneous  circumstances,  though  not  absolutely  con- 
clusive in  themselves,  are,  nevertheless,  scarcely  less  con- 
vincing than  the  most  direct  evidence  when  considered 
with  all  the  rest ;  for,  in  the  "  Advancement  of  Learning," 
treating  of  moral  culture,  Bacon  quotes  Aristotle  as  say- 
ing, "  that  young  men  are  no  fit  auditors  of  moral  philos- 
ophy," because  "  they  are  not  settled  from  the  boiling  heat 
of  their  affections,  nor  attempered  with  time  and  experi- 
ence." And  in  the  "  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  we  have  the 
same  thing  in  these  lines :  — 

"  Not  much 
Unlike  young  men,  whom  Aristotle  thought 
Unfit  to  hear  moral  philosophy."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

Mr.  Spedding  notices  that  Aristotle  speaks  only  of  "  polit- 
ical philosophy,"  and  he  observes  that  the  error  of  Bacon,  in ' 


EARLY  PLAYS.  49 

making  him  speak  of  "  moral  philosophy,"  had  been  followed 
by  Shakespeare.  The  "  Advancement "  was  published  in 
1605,  and  this  appears  to  have  been  a  new  play  in  1608, 
(if,  indeed,  that  older  play  of  1602  were  not  a  first  sketch 
of  the  same  piece,)  and  so,  it  is  barely  possible  that  William 
Shakespeare  may  have  seen  the  "  Advancement "  before 
those  lines  were  written.  But  the  whole  tenor  of  the  argu- 
ment in  the  play  is  so  exactly  in  keeping  with  Bacon's  man- 
ner and  mode  of  dealing  with  the  subject,  that  it  is  hard  to 
believe  a  mere  plagiarist  would  have  followed  him  so  pro- 
foundly. Bacon  expresses  the  same  opinions  somewhat 
more  fully  in  the  De  Augmentis,  (published  in  1623,)  that 
"  young  men  are  less  fit  auditors  of  policy  than  of  morals, 
until  they  have  been  thoroughly  seasoned  in  religion  and 
the  doctrine  of  morals  and  duties ;  for,  otherwise,  the 
judgment  is  so  depraved  and  corrupted  that  they  are  apt 
to  think  there  are  no  true  and  solid  moral  differences  of 
things,  and  they  measure  everything  according  to  utility  or 
success,  as  the  poet  says :  — 

"  Prosperum  et  foelix  scelus  virtus  vocatur."  i 

Now,  this  is  precisely  the  depraved  judgment  of  young 
Paris,  according  to  his  speech  in  the  play.  He  argued 
that  it  would  be  disgraceful  to  the  Trojan  leaders  to  give 
up  Helen,  "  on  terms  of  base  compulsion  " :  he 

"  would  have  the  soil  of  her  fair  rape 

Wip'd  off  in  honorable  keeping  her." 

To  which  Hector  replies  altogether  too  much  in  Bacon's 
own  style,  not  to  have  participated  in  his  studies  :  — 

"  Hect.    Paris  and  Troilus,  you  have  both  said  well ; 
And  on  the  cause  and  question  now  in  hand 
Have  gloz'd,  —  but  superficially ;  not  much 
Unlike  young  men,  whom  Aristotle  thought 
Unfit  to  hear  moral  philosophy. 
The  reasons  you  allege,  do  more  conduce 
To  the  hot  passion  of  distemper'd  blood, 
Than  to  make  up  a  free  determination 

l  De  Aug.  Lib.  VII.,  Works  (Boston),  III.  45. 
4 


50  DOUBTFUL  PLATS. 

'Twixt  right  and  wrong;  for  pleasure  and  revenge 

Have  ears  more  deaf  than  adders  to  the  voice 

Of  any  true  decision.    Nature  craves 

All  dues  be  render'd  to  their  owners :  now, 

What  nearer  debt  in  all  humanity 

Than  wife  is  to  the  husband  ?  if  this  law 

Of  nature  be  corrupted  through  affection, 

And  that  great  minds,  of  partial  indulgence 

To  their  benumbed  wills,  resist  the  same, 

There  is  a  law  in  each  well-ordered  nation, 

To  curb  those  raging  appetites  that  are 

Most  disobedient  and  refractory. 

If  Helen,  then,  be  wife  to  Sparta's  king, — 

As  it  is  known  she  is,  —  these  moral  laws 

Of  nature  and  of  nations  speak  aloud 

To  have  her  back  return' d:  thus  to  persist 

In  doing  wrong  extenuates  not  wrong, 

But  makes  it  much  more  heavy."  —  Act  II.  8c.  2. 

In  addition  to  the  similarity  of  idea  in  respect  of  the 
errors  of  young  men  as  to  the  doctrine  and  foundation  of 
morals,  there  is  an  outcropping  of  identical  expression  in 
such  phrases  as  these  :  "  not  settled  from  the  boiling  heat  of 
their  affections,  nor  attempered  with  time  and  experience" 
and  "  to  the  hot  passion  of  distempered  blood  "  ;  "  the  judg- 
ment is  so  depraved  and  corrupted"  and  "  if  this  law  of  na- 
ture be  corrupted  through  affection "  /  "  no  true  and  solid 
moral  differences  of  things"  and  "  these  moral  laws  of  nature 
and  of  nations  "  ;  "  the  soil  of  her  fair  rape  wip'd  off  in  hon- 
orable keeping  her"  and  "  scelus  virtus  vocatur  "  ;  which  are 
altogether  too  special,  palpable,  and  peculiar,  to  be  acciden- 
tal, or  to  be  due  to  any  common  usage  of  that  or  any  age  ; 
and  there  would  seem  to  be  no  room  left  for  the  possibility 
of  a  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  authorship. 

§   7.   DOUBTFUL   PLAYS. 

Not  only  these  plays  and  poems,  but  six  other  plays, 
which  did  not  appear  in  that  Folio,  and  which  have  never 
been  received  into  the  genuine  canon,  were  likewise  pub- 
lished, in  Shakespeare's  lifetime,  under  his  name,  or  initials, 
viz:   the   "Sir  John  Oldcastle  "  in  1600,  the  "London 


DOUBTFUL  PLAYS.  51 

Prodigal"  in  1605,  the  "Yorkshire  Tragedy"  in  1608, 
(and  the  "  Pericles  "  in  1609,)  under  his  name  in  full ;  and 
the  "  Locrine  "  in  1595,  the  "  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell "  in 
1602,  and  the  "  Puritan,  or  Widow  of  Watling  Street"  in 
1 607,  under  the  initials  "  W.  S.,"  which  some  critics  have 
taken  to  mean  William  Shakespeare,  while  others,  with 
Malone,  have  agreed  that  they  meant  William  Smith,  and, 
with  Pope,  that  Shakespeare  never  wrote  a  single  line  of 
them.  These  plays  were  in  the  possession  of  his  theatre, 
and  doubtless  came  into  the  hands  of  the  printers  in  like 
manner  with  many  of  the  others,  which  were  in  like  man- 
ner reputed  to  be  his.  And  not  only  these,  but  still  another 
list  was  imputed  to  him,  in  his  own  time  and  afterwards, 
viz :  the  "  Arraignment  of  Paris,"  the  "  Arden  of  Fever- 
sham,"  the  "Edward  III.,"  the  "Birth  of  Merlin,"  the 
"  Fair  Em  ;  the  Miller's  Daughter,"  and  the  "  Mucedorus," 
as  well  as  the  "  Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton,"  acted  at  the 
Globe,  and  printed,  in  1608,  under  the  names  of  Shake- 
speare and  Rowley,  and  the  "  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,"  printed 
after  the  death  of  Shakespeare  under  his  name  and  that  of 
Fletcher ;  most  of  which  have  been  rejected  by  nearly  all 
critics  as  not  Shakespeare's. 

Of  the  three  that  were  published  under  his  name  in  full, 
in  his  lifetime,  there  is  scarcely  any  room  to  doubt  that 
they  were  written  by  other  authors.  According  to  Malone, 
the  "  Sir  John  Oldcastle  "  was  written  by  Munday,  Drayton, 
Wilson,  and  Hathwaye.  The  first  and  second  parts  of  it 
were  entered  in  the  books  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  in 
1 600  ;  the  first  part  was  printed  in  the  name  of  William 
Shakespeare,  in  that  year,  as  performed  at  Henslowe's  the- 
atre ;  and  an  entry  in  Henslowe's  diary  shows  that,  in  1599, 
he  paid  those  authors  for  both  parts ;  but  the  second  part 
was  never  printed.  Mr.  Knight  and  other  later  critics  con- 
cur in  the  judgment  of  Malone,  that  it  is  clearly  not  a  play 
of  Shakespeare. 

The  "  Yorkshire  Tragedy "  was  entered  and  printed  in 


52  DOUBTFUL  PLAYS. 

1608;  the  event  on  which  the  story  is  founded  did  not 
happen  until  1604;  and  although  there  may  be  no  decisive 
reasons,  grounded  on  internal  evidence  merely,  why  it  may 
not  have  been  a  careless  and  hasty  production  of  this 
author,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  he  could  have  produced 
such  a  play  at  about  the  same  time  that  he  was  writing 
the  "  Hamlet,"  the  "  Lear,"  the  "  Macbeth,"  and  the  "  Julius 
Caesar."  The  best  judges  concur  in  rejecting  it  as  not 
written  by  him. 

The  "London  Prodigal"  was  published  in  1605,  as 
played  by  the  "  King's  Majesty's  Servants  "  of  the  Globe, 
and  as  written  by  "William  Shakespeare ;  but  Malone, 
Knight,  and  White  reject  it  altogether.  And  of  the  other 
three,  while  it  appears  that  one  of  them,  the  "  Lord  Crom- 
well," was  performed  by  his  company,  the  evidence  is  still 
more  satisfactory,  that  they  were  all  written  by  some  other 
person,  and  probably  by  William  Smith.  Concerning  the 
other  bst,  the  evidence  is  more  uncertain ;  but  while  some 
critics  have  believed  that  Shakespeare  might  have  written 
at  least  some  of  them,  the  weight  of  fact  and  opinion  is 
pretty  decidedly  against  them  all. 

On  the  whole,  it  would  seem  to  be  very  certain  that  plays 
were  published  in  his  name,  in  his  own  time,  of  which  he 
was  not  the  author.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  he  ever  took 
the  least  trouble  to  prevent  this  unwarrantable  use  of  his 
name :  no  denial,  or  other  vindication  of  his  reputation, 
has  come  down  to  us.  We  know  that  it  was  not  an  unu- 
sual thing,  in  those  days,  for  "  sharking  booksellers  "  to  set 
a  great  name  to  a  book  "  for  sale-sake."  The  name  of  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  was  used  in  this  manner,  and  even  that  of 
Shakespeare  was  set  to  Heywood's  translation  of  Ovid,  by 
Jaggard,  in  1612;  but  Mr.  Halliwell  finds  some  intimation, 
coming  from  Heywood  himself,  that  Shakespeare  was 
"  much  offended "  with  Jaggard  for  this  liberty  with  his 
name  :  it  is  more  probable,  in  this  instance,  that  Heywood 
would  be  the  most  offended  man  of  the  two.     It  may  be 


DOUBTFUL  PLAYS.  53 

taken  as  sufficiently  established,  that  this  good-natured  actor 
and  manager  was  in  the  habit  of  publishing,  or  suffering  to 
be  published,  in  his  name  or  initials,  the  plays  which  were 
owned  by  his  theatre,  as  they  were  produced  on  the  stage, 
of  some  of  which  it  is  well  ascertained  that  he  was  not  the 
author ;  that  he  was  not  particular  about  shining  thus  in 
borrowed  feathers  ;  that  he  never  took  the  least  care  of  his 
reputation  as  an  author,  either  before  or  after  his  retiring 
from  the  stage ;  and  so,  that  the  simple  fact,  that  the  plays 
and  poems  appeared  under  his  name,  and  being  reputed  to 
be  his,  in  his  own  time,  so  passed  into  the  traditional  myth, 
must  lose  nearly  all  force  of  evidence  as  touching  the  ques- 
tion of  the  real  authorship.  In  a  word,  he  was  just  such  a 
character  as  would  naturally  be  hit  upon  as  a  convenient 
and  necessary  cover  for  an  aspiring  and  prolific  genius,  an 
irrepressible  wit,  a  poetic  imaginator,  a  man  of  all  knowl- 
edge, classical  learning,  and  a  world-wide  soul,  who  was  at 
the  same  time  ambitious  of  promotion  in  the  state,  in  which 
direction  lay  the  plan  of  his  life,  though  never  basely  obse- 
quious to  power  withal  (as  some  have  imagined),  still  suf- 
fering by  neglect  and  "  the  meanness  of  his  estate,"  solicit- 
ing in  vain,  lacking  advancement,  and  "  eating  the  air, 
promise-crammed  "  ;  and  who  had  determined  to  u  profess 
not  to  be  a  poet,"  but  felt  that  he  had  a  mission  beyond  the 
exigencies  of  the  hour,  and  what  is  more,  that  his  light 
must  shine,  though  he  should  conceal  his  name  in  a  cloud, 

"And  keep  invention  in  a  noted  weed." 

Sonnet  Ixxvi. 

But  if  any  one  shall  deem  it  necessary  to  assign  some  of 
these  doubtful  plays  to  this  author,  he  will  consider  that  this 
argument  loses  nothing  in  strength  or  force  on  that  account. 
Between  the  time  of  Bacon's  becoming  an  utter  barrister  of 
Gray's  Inn,  in  1582,  and  the  publication  of  the '"  Venus  and 
Adonis,"  there  was  a  period  of  ten  years,  in  which  a  number 
of  such  plays  may  much  better  have  been  written  by  him 
than  by  William  Shakespeare.      They  were  not  admitted 


54  DOUBTFUL  PLAYS. 

into  the  Folio  of  1623 ;  the  editors,  whether  Heming  and 
Condell,  or  some  other,  either  knew  them  to  be  spurious, 
or  rejected  them  as  youthful  and  inferior  productions,  and 
as  unworthy  to  take  a  place  among  the  greater  works  of  the 
author  before  the  tribunal  of  posterity  ;  and  all  critics  seem 
to  concur  in  that  opinion  of  their  relative  merit.  It  may 
have  been  for  the  same  reason  that  the  "  Pericles  "  was  not 
included  in  the  Folio,  though  undoubtedly  a  work  of  this 
author.  It  is  quite  possible,  however,  that  the  copyright  had 
been  sold,  and  could  not  be  regained.  The  play  appears  to 
have  been  founded  upon  a  very  ancient  and  popular  tale, 
and  it  is  highly  probable  that  it  was  an  early  work,  though 
by  no  means  a  weak  or  an  immature  production.  The  best 
critics  seem  to  agree  that  it  had  been  retouched  by  the 
hand  of  the  master  in  his  better  style  before  it  was  brought 
out  anew  in  1607-8,  and  printed  in  1609,  as  "  the  late  and 
nuich  admired  play  called  '  Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,'  "  and 
"  as  it  hath  been  divers  and  sundry  times  acted  by  his  Maj- 
esty's Servants  at  the  Globe  on  the  Banckside,"  with  the 
name  of  "William  Shakespeare  on  the  title-page.  The  text 
(say  Harness  and  White)  is  very  corrupt  and  full  of  er- 
rors ;  and  the  reason  of  this  may  lay  precisely  in  the  fact 
that  it  was  not  revised  by  the  real  editor  of  the  Folio,  nor 
printed  under  his  supervision.  The  story  is  more  ancient 
than  the  time  and  countries  in  which  the  scene  is  laid.  It 
is  a  deeply  interesting  and  touching  dramatic  romance,  as 
addressed  not  to  modern  rose-water  criticism  merely,  but 
to  the  human  heart  of  the  world's  theatre,  and  rather  as  it 
was  in  the  ancient  than  in  the  modern  times;  and  the 
spirit  of  the  Greek  drama,  and  even  much  of  the  touching 
simplicity  of  the  tales  of  the  Odyssey,  is  preserved  in  it. 
The  first  scene  of  the  fifth  act,  in  particular,  bears  a  close 
resemblance  to  the  style  and  manner  of  the  dramatic  dia- 
logue of  Euripides.  So,  likewise,  the  "  Titus  Andronicus  " 
is,  in  some  points  of  substance  rather  than  in  the  form,  a 
near  imitation  of  the  more  serious  Greek  tragedy ;  and  it 


DOUBTFUL  PLAYS.  55 

furnishes  indubitable  evidence  that  the  author  was  familiar 
with  the  ancient  drama.  The  main  topics  of  this  history 
of  the  Prince  of  Tyre  afford  occasion,  also,  for  those  pro- 
found exhibitions  of  human  nature  in  the  opposite  ex- 
tremes of  vice  and  virtue  which  came  within  the  range  of 
this  author's  studies.  And  after  a  manner  which  is  at  least 
not  improbable  for  the  younger  hand  of  Francis  Bacon, 
who,  throughout  his  life,  held  knowledge  and  virtue  to  be 
superior  to  riches ;  who,  in  his  youth,  had  taken  all  knowl- 
edge to  be  his  province,  and,  as  he  said  himself,  "  rather 
referred  and  aspired  to  virtue  than  to  gain  ; " 1  who  pursued 
that  immortality  which  makes  a  man  a  god,  confessing  he 
was  by  nature  "  fitter  to  hold  a  book  than  play  a  part "  ; 
and  who  made  a  study  of  all  arts,  and  was  particularly 
curious  in  his  investigations  into  the  medicinal  virtues 
of  plants  and  minerals,  as  well  as  into  all  the  hidden  mys- 
teries of  Nature,  being  also  much  in  the  habit  of  turning 
over  authorities ;  —  Lord  Cerimon  speaks  thus  in  the 
"Pericles":  — 

"  I  held  it  ever, 
Virtue  and  cunning  were  endowments  greater 
Than  nobleness  and  riches :  careless  heirs 
May  the  two  latter  darken  and  expend; 
But  immortality  attends  the  former, 
Making  a  man  a  god.    'T  is  known  I  ever 
Have  studied  physic,  through  which  secret  art, 
By  turning  o'er  authorities,  I  have 
(Together  with  my  practice)  made  familiar 
To  me  and  to  my  aid  the  blest  infusions 
That  dwell  in  vegetives,  in  metals,  stones; 
And  I  can  speak  of  the  disturbances 
That  Nature  works,  and  of  her  cures ;  which  gives 
A  more  content  in  course  of  true  delight 
Than  to  be  thirsty  after  tottering  honour, 
Or  tie  my  treasure  up  in  silken  bags, 
To  please  the  Fool  and  Death."  —  Act  III.  8c.  2. 

1  Letter  to  Egerton. 


56  THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS. 


§  8.  the  author's  attainments. 
It  will  be  unnecessary  to  undertake  to  demonstrate  at 
large  herein,  from  the  internal  evidence  contained  in  the 
plays  themselves,  that  their  author  was  a  classical  scholar, 
was  acquainted  with  several  foreign  languages,  was  an  adept 
in  natural  science,  was  a  lawyer  by  profession,  was  a  pro- 
found metaphysical  philosopher,  and  was  in  general  a  man 
of  high  and  polished  culture  and  extensive  learning  for  his 
time  in  all  branches  of  human  knowledge,  in  addition  to  the 
largest  amount  of  natural  genius  and  intellectual  power 
which  may  reasonably  be  allowed  to  any  mortal.  The  most 
competent  judges  in  these  matters  have  so  pronounced. 
The  inference  has  been,  not  that  any  other  man  was  in 
fact  the  author  of  these  works  (at  least,  until  Miss  Delia 
Bacon  ventured  so  to  declare x ),  but  that  the  received 
biography  of  William  Shakespeare  was  a  myth  and  a  mis- 
take ;  and  so  the  chief  critics  have  proceeded  to  imagine 
for  him  some  unwritten  and  unknown  biography.  But  we 
shall  have  to  accept  the  known  personal  history  as  at  last 
the  true  account  (in  the  main)  of  the  man  William  Shake- 
speare. The  later  inquiries  of  modern  scholars,  the  Shake- 
speare Society  included,  have  ended  only  in  rendering  the 
supposition  still  more  extravagant  and  absurd  than  it  was 
before ;  for  the  results,  which  have  been  carefully  summed 
up  by  Mr.  Halliwell  and  later  biographers,  furnish  no  data 
on  which  the  previous  account  of  his  life  can  be  in  any 
material  degree  modified  in  respect  of  this  matter.  On 
the  contrary,  the  new  facts  (such  as  are  not  forgeries)  only 
concur  with  what  was  known  before  in  representing  him  to 
us  as  a  man  whose  heart  and  soul  were  more  intent  upon 
business,  social  affairs,  and  (what  Lord  Coke  took  to  be 
the  chief  end  of  man)  industrious  money-getting,  than  upon 
anything  that  pertained  to  the  literary  part  of  his  profes- 
sion.    The  essential  problem  still  remains. 

1  Phil,  of  Shakes.  Plays  Unfolded.    Boston,  1857. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS.         57 

A  few  brief  words  only  will  be  added  under  this  topic. 
The  writer  was  a  classical  scholar.  Rowe  found  traces  in 
him  of  the  "  Electra "  of  Sophocles ;  Colman,  of  Ovid ; 
Pope,  of  Darius  Phrygius  and  other  Greek  authors ;  Far- 
mer, of  Horace  and  Virgil ;  Malone,  of  Lucretius,  Statius, 
Catullus,  Seneca,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides ;  Steevens,  of 
Plautus ;  Knight,  of  the  "Antigone  "  of  Sophocles ;  White, 
of  the  "Alcestis "  of  Euripides ;  and  doubtless  many  re- 
semblances and  imitations  of  the  ancient  authors  have 
been  noticed  by  other  critics  and  scholars.  For  resem- 
blances with  Euripides,  certainly  too  striking  to  be  alto- 
gether accidental,  the  curious  reader  may  compare  these 
passages :  "  Orestes,"  1204-6,  and  "  Electra,"  693,  with 
"Macbeth,"  I.  7  ;  "  Orestes,"  1271,  with  "  Hamlet,"  Ul.  4 ; 
"Orestes,"  1291  and  1375,  with  "Macbeth,"  II.  2 ;  and  gen- 
erally the  "  Orestes  "  and  "  Electra  "  with  "  Hamlet "  and 
"Macbeth";  "Medea,"  1284-9,  with  "Hamlet,"  IV.  7; 
"Hellene,"  270,  with  Sonnet  CXXI;  «  Hellene,"  512-14, 
with  "  Richard  II.,"  n.  1 ;  «  Rhesus  "  with  "  3  Henry  VI.," 
IV.  2  ;  and  also  the  "Antigone  "  of  Sophocles,  1344-5,  with 
the  "  Timon  of  Athens,"  IV.  3,  and  the  Timon  of  Lucian 
with  the  play  of  "  Timon." 

Some  have  sought,  with  Dr.  Farmer,  to  find  the  source 
of  all  this  classical  learning  in  sundry  English  translations, 
but  it  has  been  an  idle  undertaking ;  for  it  appears  that  he 
drew,  in  fact,  from  the  untranslated  authors.  The  greater 
part  of  the  story  of  Timon  was  taken  from  the  untranslated 
Greek  of  Lucian,  an  author  that  is  several  times  quoted  in 
the  writings  of  Bacon.  Ovid  and  Tacitus  were  favorite 
authors  with  Bacon,  and  frequent  traces  of  both  are  to  be 
found  in  the  plays.  The  "  Comedy  of  Errors "  was  little 
more  than  a  reproduction  (in  a  different  dress)  of  the  Me- 
noechmi  of  Plautus,  also  an  author  that  is  frequently  quoted 
by  Bacon.  The  first  mention  that  we  have  of  this  play  is, 
that  it  was  performed  during  the  twelve  days  of  the  Christ- 
mas Revels  at  Gray's  Inn,  in  1594,  on  which  occasion  it  is 


58         THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS. 

now  historically  known  that  Francis  Bacon  furnished  at 
least  a  masque,1  and  (as  I  will  attempt  to  prove)  this  very 

)play  also  ;  and  there  was  no  translation  of  the  Menoechmi 
before  1595.  Beginning  the  career  of  an  actor  with  "  small 
Latin  and  less  Greek,"  William  Shakespeare  cannot  be  pre- 
sumed to  have  made  himself  acquainted  with  much  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  literature,  and  especially  not  with  Soph- 
ocles, Euripides,  and  Plato,  as  this  writer  undoubtedly  was ; 
for  these  had  not  been  translated.  The  author  was  able  to 
drink  deep  of  the  very  spirit  of  the  Greek  tragedy,  without 
danger  of  drowning  in  the  bowl ;  according  to  some  great 
critics,  he  surpassed  it  altogether;  and  a  thorough  student 
may  discover  in  the  plays  not  only  traces  of  Plato,  but  a 
wonderful  approximation  to  the  depth  and  breadth  of  the 
Platonic  philosophy.  Moreover,  he  was  well  versed  in  the 
ancient  mythology,  and  in  the  history,  manners,  and  cus- 
toms of  antiquity  :  in  short,  he  knew  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
ancients. 

It  is  equally  clear  that  he  knew  French  and  Italian. 
The  story  of  Othello  was  taken  from  the  Italian  of 
Cinthio's  "  II  Capitano  Moro,"  of  which  no  translation  is 
known  to  have  existed ;  the  tale  of  "  Cymbeline  "  was  drawn 

I  from  an  Italian  novel  of  Boccaccio,  not  known  to  have  been 
translated  into  English ;  and  the  like  is  true  of  some  other 
plays.  Several  of  the  plays  were  founded  upon  stories 
taken  from  Belleforest's  "  Histoires  Tragiques,"  of  which 
some  few  were  to  be  found  in  Painter's  translation,  of 
which  one  volume  had  been  published  in  the  time  of 
Shakespeare,  but  others  of  them  had  not  been  translated. 
Francis  Bacon  had  lived  four  years  in  Paris,  and  was  mas- 
ter of  the  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  languages ;  and  it 
is  highly  probable  that,  in  1580,  he  would  be  in  possession 
of  the  "  Histoires  Tragiques  "  as  well  as  of  the  Essays  of 
Montaigne  in  the  original  French.  Florio's  translation  of 
Montaigne  was  published  in  1603,  and  it  has  been  said 
i  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life  of  Bacon  (London,  1861),  I.  325-342. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS.  59 

that  an  old  copy  had  been  found  which  contained  an  auto- 
graph of  William  Shakespeare ;  but  Mr.  Halliwell  is  com- 
pelled to  reject  the  story  as  not  authentic.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  reasonable  enough  to  suppose  that  so  notable  a  book 
as  this  was  may  have  fallen  into  his  hands. 

The  author  was  skilled  in  natural  science.  He  pursued 
a  scientific  rather  than  the  common  method  of  observation, 
though  the  scientific  observation  of  that  day  had  in  it  some- 
thing of  poetic  vagueness  and  generality  as  compared  with 
modern  methods.  This  is  visible  in  the  nature  of  his  illus- 
trations, metaphors,  and  allusions ;  and  it  is  clear  that  he 
had  made  some  study  of  the  medical  science  and  materia 
medica  of  his  time.  Pope  did  not  fail  to  notice  that  he 
had  a  taste  for  "  natural  philosophy  and  mechanics."  He 
understood  the  whole  machinery  of  astrology,  alchemy, 
witchcraft,  and  sorcery,  not  merely  as  it  stood  in  the  popu- 
lar traditions,  but  in  the  sense  of  the  written  literature  of 
that  day ;  and  he  had  a  philosophy  of  spirits,  ghosts, 
witches,  dreams,  visions,  and  prophecies,  so  subtle  and  pro- 
found as  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  uninitiated  and  unin- 
structed  genius.  The  spontaneous  and  merely  natural  man 
does  not  proceed  in  that  manner.  He  will  see  things  in  a 
certain  general,  vague,  and  common  way,  as  it  were,  in  the 
gross  and  complex  only,  and  rather  in  merely  fanciful  rela- 
tions than  in  that  accurate  manner  of  close  and  deep  analy- 
sis, which  also  discovers  the  scientific  form  and  real  nature 
of  things,  as  seen  in  all  true  poetry  ;  and  such  must  have 
been  the  habit  and  manner  of  this  author.  This  accords 
with  the  known  history  of  Bacon's  earlier  as  well  as  his 
later  years ;  for  he  was  always  a  close  observer  of  nature, 
and  pursued  in  private  his  experimental  researches,  never 
losing  sight  of  his  great  work,  the  instauration  of  natural 
history  and  physical  science,  as  the  surest  foundation  for 
philosophy  itself,  and  the  safest  road  into  the  higher  realm 
of  metaphysics.  It  would  indeed  be  a  wonder,  as  Pope 
said,  if  a  man  could  know  the  world  by  intuition,  and  see 
through  nature  at  one  glance. 


60         THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS. 

He  was  a  lawyer  too.  His  use  of  legal  terms  and  phrases, 
in  the  sonnets  as  well  as  the  plays,  and  his  representations 
of  legal  proceedings,  are  of  such  a  kind  and  character,  that 
it  is  at  once  apparent  to  the  mind  of  a  lawyer,  that  the 
writer  had  been  educated  to  that  profession.  Mr.  Collier 
and  Lord  Campbell  were  not  the  first  to  observe  this  very 
important  fact  Neither  the  long  list  of  examples  cited  by 
Malone,1  nor  the  learned  essay  of  Lord  Campbell,  by  any 
,  means  contains  them  all ;  they  pervade  these  writings  with 
that  peculiar  use  which  is  familiar  to  the  lawyer  only,  and 
they  flow  from  him  as  unconsciously  as  his  very  soul.  Such 
learning,  most  certainly,  does  not  come  by  instinct,  though 
we  admit,  with  Dogberry,  that  "  to  read  and  write  comes 
by  nature";  and  no  acquaintance  which  William  Shake- 
speare could  have  had  with  the  law,  consistently  with  the 
known  facts  of  his  life,  can  reasonably  account  for  this 
striking  feature  in  the  plays.  It  was  not  to  be  had  in  the 
office  of  a  bailiff;  and  the  considerations  referred  to  by 
Lord  Campbell,  though  of  the  nature  of  negative  evidence, 
ought  to  be  taken  as  satisfactory,  that  he  could  never  have 
been  a  regular  student  at  law  at  Stratford-on-Avon ;  espe- 
cially since  his  Lordship  did  not  become  a  convert  to  this 
unavoidable  and  very  necessary  theory  of  Mr.  Collier. 

The  speech  of  the  Archbishop  on  the  Salic  law,  in  the 
"  Henry  V.,"  as  Dr.  Farmer  observed,  was  evidently  taken, 
and  almost  literally  versified,  from  a  passage  in  Holinshed's 
Chronicles,2  together  with  a  quotation  from  the  Book  of 
Numbers,  to  the  effect  that  when  a  man  dies  without  a  son, 
the  inheritance  descends  to  the  daughter.  And  it  is  at 
least  singularly  curious,  that  in  the  "Apothegms  "  of  Bacon 
there  are  two  anecdotes,  based,  the  one  upon  the  same  doc- 
I  trine  with  regard  to  the  Salic  law  as  that  maintained  in 
this  speech,  viz.,  that  in  France  itself  males  claimed  by 
,  women,  with  a  repetition  of  the  French  "  gloss  "  of  Holin- 
shed ;  and  the  other  upon  a  quotation  from  Scripture,  as  in 

»  Chron.  Order  of  Shakes.  Plays.  2  Chron.  of  Eng.  III.  65. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS.  61 

both  Holinshed  and  the  speech.  It  is,  of  course,  possible 
that  Shakespeare  might  make  plays,  and  Bacon,  apothegms, 
out  of  Holinshed ;  but  when  numerous  instances  of  the 
same  kind  occur  (as  will  be  shown),  it  may  well  furnish  an 
indication  that  the  transition  took  place  through  the  same 
mind  in  both  cases.  He  was  in  the  habit  of  making  apo- 
thegms of  his  own  wit ;  that  concerning  the  "  seditious 
prelude "  of  Dr.  Hayward  (as  supposed)  and  his  own 
facetious  attempt  to  avert  the  anger  of  the  Queen,  who 
thought  there  was  treason  in  it,  may  be  taken  as  one  in- 
stance ;  and  perhaps  we  have  another  in  the  apothegm  of 
the  fellow  named  Hogg,  who  importuned  Sir  Nicholas 
Bacon  to  save  his  life,  claiming  that  there  was  kindred  be- 
tween Hog  and  Bacon.  "  Aye,"  replied  the  judge,  "  you 
and  I  cannot  be  kindred,  except  you  be  hanged ;  for  Hog 
is  not  Bacon  until  it  be  well  hanged." *  And  the  same  jest 
appears  in  the  "  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  thus :  — 

"  Evans.  Accusitivo,  king,  hang,  hog. 
Quick.  Hang  hog  is  Latin  for  bacon,  I  warrant  you." — Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

A  passage  in  the  second  part  of  the  "Henry  IV." 
(Act  III.  Sc.  2)  would  seem  to  render  it  highly  probable 
that  the  writer  himself  had  seen  somebody  "  fight  with  one 
Sampson  Stockfish,  a  fruiterer,  behind  Gray's  Inn."  There 
are  allusions  also  in  the  first  part  of  the  "  Henry  IV.,"  from 
which  it  may  be  inferred  that  St.  Albans  was  a  familiar 
name  and  a  favorite  place  with  the  author ;  and  Gorham- 
bury  near  St.  Albans  had  been  the  country  residence  of 
his  father,  and,  after  his  father's  death,  of  his  mother,  and 
subsequently,  his  own  country-seat.  He  was  several  times 
elected  to  Parliament  for  the  borough  of  St  Albans,  which 
was  the  site  of  the  ancient  Vertdamium,  whence  were  taken 
his  titles  of  Baron  Verulam  and  Viscount  St  Albans ;  and 
he  directed  by  his  will  that  his  remains  should  be  buried 
in  "  St.  Michael's  Church,  near  St.  Albans."  And  after  his 
fall  from  power,  when  he  had  returned  to  his  lodgings  in 
l  Bacon's  Apothegms. 


62         THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS. 

Gray's  Inn,  and  his  "  labours  were  now  most  set  to  have 
those  works,"  which  he  had  formerly  published,  "made 
more  perfect,"  in  a  proposal  which  he  was  making  to  the 
King  for  a  "  Digest  of  the  Laws,"  he  says :  "  As  for  myself, 
the  law  was  my  profession,  to  which  I  am  a  debtor ;  some 
little  helps  I  have  of  other  arts,  which  may  give  form  to 
matter." 

Moreover,  this  writer  was  a  philosopher.  "  He  was  not 
only  a  great  poet,  but  a  great  philosopher,"  says  Coleridge. 
These  words  from  such  a  man  may  be  presumed  to  mean 
something.  And  when  such  judges  of  the  matter  as  Schil- 
ler, Goethe,  and  Jean  Paul  Richter  also  agree  in  finding 
that  he  was  a  philosopher,  no  one  need  be  amazed  at  the 
assertion,  that  he  was  master  of  all  the  learning  of  the 
Greeks,  and  had  sounded  the  depths  of  Plato.  For  the 
mass  of  readers,  it  can  no  more  be  expected,  that  they 
should  comprehend,  in  any  adequate  manner,  what  this 
really  means,  than  that  they  should  understand,  without 
more,  what  was  meant  by  the  Philosophia  Prima  of  Bacon, 
or  "  Philosophy  itself."  But  it  can  never  mean  less  than 
one  who  has  carried  his  studies  into  the  highest  realms  of 
human  thought  and  culture ;  and  that  was  never  the  work 
of  a  day,  nor  often  of  a  whole  life.  Nor  was  it  ever  the 
work  of  intuition  merely.  It  is  at  least  conceivable,  that  a 
man  who  was  capable  of  taking  a  critical  survey  of  all  pre- 
vious learning,  and  pointing  out  the  way  for  the  advance- 
ment of  human  knowledge,  who  wrote  civil  and  moral 
essays  upon  all  phases  of  life  and  character,  which  still 
live  as  fresh  as  ever,  and  who  could  venture  to  undertake 
the  instauration,  not  of  physical  science  merely,  but  of 
philosophy  itself,  might,  by  possibility,  be  able  to  write  such 
dramas  as  the  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  the  "  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,"  the  "  As  You  Like  It,"  the  "  Measure  for 
Measure,"  the  "  Cymbeline,"  the  "  Hamlet,"  the  u  Lear,"  the 
"  Macbeth,"  the  "  Timon  of  Athens,"  the  "  Troilus  and 
Cressida,"  and  the  "  Tempest " ;  but,  for  such  a  man  as  we 


THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS.  63 

know  for  William  Shakespeare,  it  would  appear  to  be  a 
thing  next  to  impracticable,  if  not  wholly  impossible.  It 
would  probably  be  of  no  sort  of  use  or  effect  to  declare 
here  that  this  consideration,  duly  weighed,  ought  to  be 
taken  as  conclusive  of  the  whole  matter.  In  fact,  it  will 
not ;  and  the  inquiry  must  proceed. 

A  well-marked  difference  may  be  looked  for  between  the 
earlier  and  the  later  works  of  any  writer.  More  striking 
evidence  of  growth  does  not  exist  in  the  works  of  Schiller, 
or  Goethe,  which  were  produced  before,  and  those  produced 
after,  they  respectively  became  initiated  into  the  mysteries 
of  the  higher  philosophy,  than  is  manifest  in  the  earlier  and 
later  plays  of  Shakespeare.  In  either  case,  the  collegiate 
erudition  of  the  tyro  is,  at  length,  lost  in  the  comprehen- 
sive learning  of  the  finished  scholar,  and  the  exuberant 
fancy  of  the  spontaneous  poet  and  inexperienced  youth 
becomes  subdued  into  the  matured  strength  and  breadth, 
the  depth  of  feeling,  and  the  prophetic  insight  of  the  seer 
and  the  philosopher.  We  know  that  Francis  Bacon  had 
practiced  those  "  Georgics  of  the  Mind  "  on  which  all  criti- 
cal thinking  and  high  art  depend.  He  comprehended  that 
"  Exemplar  or  Platform  of  Good,"  the  "  Colours  of  Good 
and  Evil,"  and  that  "  Regiment  or  Culture  of  the  Mind,"  l 
whereby  alone  the  highest  excellence  may  be  reached  ;  and 
he  had  attained  to  that  noble  philosophy,  whereby  only  the 
soul  of  man  is  to  be  "  raised  above  the  confusion  of  things  " 
to  that  height  of  Plato,  where,  situate  as  upon  a  cliff,  he 
may  have  "  a  prospect  of  the  order  of  nature  and  the 
errours  of  men."  2 

In  Francis  Bacon,  we  have  a  man  three  years  older  than 
William  Shakespeare,  and,  when  the  latter  came  to  Lon- 
don, already  ten  years  from  the  University  and  some  four 
years  an  utter  barrister  of  Gray's  Inn,  and  well  prepared, 
by  the  best  possible  advantages  of  early  education,  finished 
classical  scholarship,  foreign  travel,  and  residence  at  royal 
l  Adv.  of  Learning.  2  Works  (Montagu),  I.  252. 


64  THE  AUTHOR'S  ATTAINMENTS. 

courts,  extraordinary  natural  gifts  and  learned  acquisitions, 
for  commencing  and  prosecuting  such  a  work ;  and  in  the 
situation  of  the  briefless  young  barrister,  in  the  midst  of 
books,  making  slow  progress  in  the  profession,  getting  no 
advancement  for  a  period  of  twenty-five  years  after  his 
coming  to  the  bar  beyond  the  unproductive  honor  of  a 
Queen's  or  King's  Counsel  and  a  seat  in  Parliament,  labor- 
ing under  the  twofold  embarrassment  of  an  expensive 
mode  of  life  and  debt  to  the  Lombards  and  Jews,  casting 
about  for  "  some  lease  of  quick  revenue  "  to  relieve  (as  he 
says)  "  the  meanness  of  my  estate,"  enjoying  the  society  of 
the  theatre-going  and  masque-devising  young  courtiers,  the 
dazzling  favor  of  the  Court,  the  ample  leisure  of  Gray's 
Inn,  and  occasionally  the  Arcadian  quiet  of  Gorhambury 
and  Twickenham  Park ;  and  in  his  known  devotion  to  all 
manner  of  studies  and  the  profoundest  speculations,  we 
may  find  the  needful  preparation,  the  time  for  writing  and 
for  study,  and  the  means  of  growth  and  culture  which  the 
case  requires.  And  his  acknowledged  prose  compositions 
of  that  period,  to  say  nothing  of  the  sonnets  which  he 
addressed  to  the  Queen,  or  the  masques  which  he  wrote  for 
her  entertainment,  exhibit  all  the  necessary  qualities  of  the 
poet.  He  was  "  a  poetic  imaginator,"  says  George  Darley, 
"  and  dramatic  poets  are  (or  ought  to  be)  philosophers." 1 
Even  Macaulay  admitted  that  "  the  poetical  faculty  was 
powerful  in  Bacon's  mind ;  but  not,  like  his  wit,  so  power- 
ful as  occasionally  to  usurp  the  place  of  his  reason." 2 

As  early  as  1610,  Shakespeare,  having  some  time  before 
ceased  to  play  his  part  as  an  actor  upon  the  stage,  had  re- 
tired from  the  theatres  in  London,  and  resumed  his  perma- 
nent residence  in  Stratford-on-Avon.  He  is  not  known  to 
■  have  had  any  further  connection  with  the  stage.  But  in 
1611  were  produced  the  "  Winter's  Tale  "  and  the  "  Tem- 
pest"    The  "  Lear "  was  first  performed  before  the  King 

i  Introd.  to  Works  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  by  George  Darley. 
2  Misc.,  II.  408. 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  65 

at  Whitehall,  in  1606,  and  the"Troilus  and  Cressida,"  in 
1609  ;  and  the  first  notice  that  we  have  of  the  "  Tempest" 
is,  that  it  was  performed  before  the  King's  Majesty  at 
Whitehall,  in  November,  1611 ;  and  the  "Winter's  Tale," 
first  acted  at  the  Globe,  in  May,  1611,  was  performed  be- 
fore the  King  at  Whitehall,  a  few  days  after  the  "  Tem- 
pest." Both  were  repeated  at  Court  during  the  festivities 
attending  the  nuptials  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth  and  the 
Elector  Palatine,  toward  the  close  of  the  year  1612,  and  in 
the  spring  of  1613.  And  on  the  thirtieth  day  of  June  fol- 
lowing, and  while  these  festivities  were  still  proceeding,  as 
it  appears,  the  magnificent  play  of  "  Henry  VIII."  was  for 
the  first  time  produced  in  great  splendor  at  the  Globe,  with 
the  presence  (if  not  the  assistance)  of  Ben  Jonson  (Shake- 
speare having  retired  from  London),  containing  a  studied 
and  special  compliment  to  King  James.  On  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  October,  thereafterwards,  Sir  Francis  Bacon, 
Solicitor- General,  having  sometime  before  "  come  with  his 
pitcher  to  Jacob's  well,  as  others  did,"  and  obtained  "  the 
royal  promise  to  succeed  to  the  higher  place,"  is  raised  to 
the  laborious  and  lucrative  position  of  Attorney-General, 
and  the  plays  cease  to  appear.  William  Shakespeare  con- 
tinues, a  few  years  longer,  to  enjoy  the  social  comforts  of 
New  Place,  prosecuting  at  leisure  his  agricultural  pursuits 
and  miscellaneous  traffic,  and  dies  in  April,  1616,  leaving 
a  handsome  estate  and  a  will. 

§    9.   THE   TRUE    ORIGINAL    COPIES. 

Seven  years  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare,  these  last- 
ing memorials  of  the  most  transcendent  genius  were  gath- 
ered up  from  the  play-houses  in  London  (as  it  would  seem) 
by  his  surviving  fellows,  Heming  and  Condell,  who  appear 
to  have  assumed  the  function  of  editors ;  and  they  were 
published  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  as  they  say  in  the  preface, 
from  "  the  true  original  Copies."  What  and  whence  were 
these  true  original  copies  ?    Let  us  consider  of  this.    As 


66  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

early  as  1589,  commissioners  were  appointed  by  the  Queen 
to  revise  stage-plays ;  and  after  1594,  they  had  to  be  li- 
censed and  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  before  they  could 
be  printed,  being  prohibited,  "  except  they  bee  allowed  by 
such  as  have  auctoritye."  Nevertheless,  some  may  have 
been  printed  without  license.  Before  1600,  theatres  had 
become  so  numerous  and  disorderly  that  all  but  two,  the 
Globe  and  the  Fortune,  were  suppressed  by  public  order. 
Plays  sold  to  a  theatre  were  kept  for  its  own  exclusive 
use,  and  when  they  got  abroad,  as  sometimes  they  did, 
through  surreptitious  copies,  or  when  they  found  their  way 
into  the  hands  of  the  printers,  other  theatres,  on  appeal 
to  the  authorities,  were  prohibited  from  acting  them.  It 
appears  by  the  entries  in  the  Register  of  the  Stationers' 
Company,  that  the  publishers  of  plays  claimed  a  right  of 
property  in  the  copy,  which  was  considered  assignable ; 
and  when  the  Folio  of  1623  was  published  by  Jaggard  and 
Blount,  an  entry  was  made  at  Stationers'  Hall  of  the  six- 
teen plays  which  had  not  been  printed  before,  by  their 
titles,  as  of  "  soe  many  of  the  said  Copies  as  are  not  for- 
merly entered  to  other  men,"  and  these  sixteen  were  as- 
signed by  Jaggard  and  Blount,  in  1630,  to  one  of  the  pub- 
lishers of  the  Folio  of  1632.  But  how  the  publishers  of 
the  first  Folio  had  acquired  the  copyright  of  the  rest  of  the 
plays  from  those  "  other  men,"  does  not  appear  :  it  is  to  be 
presumed  they  did  so.  It  is  probable  that  this  right  of 
property  in  the  copy  was  not  then  so  protected  by  law  as  to 
be  a  thing  of  much  value,  there  being  no  effective  remedy 
either  at  law  or  in  equity :  at  least,  none  appears  to  have 
been  sought  in  the  courts.  The  chief  object  of  this  license 
and  entry  seems  to  have  been  to  secure  a  strict  censorship 
of  the  press  ;  a  function  that  was  exercised  at  first  by  com- 
missioners, and  afterwards  by  the  Master  of  the  Revels. 
When  a  copy  had  been  licensed  to  one  publisher,  a  second 
license  appears  sometimes  to  have  been  granted  to  another, 
perhaps  after  a  transfer  of  the  copyright.    The  printing  of 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  67 

books  was  held  to  be  a  matter  of  state,  to  be  regulated  by 
Star- Chamber  decrees,  letters-patent,  commissions,  and  the 
ordinances  "  set  down  for  the  good  government  of  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company."  And  though  some  right  of  property  in 
the  copy  may  have  existed  at  common  law,  none  was  ever 
distinctly  recognized  by  any  legislation,  nor  by  any  reported 
judicial  decision  before  the  year  1640  ; 1  but  in  1637,  a  de- 
cree of  the  Star-Chamber  prohibited  the  printing  of  any 
book  or  copy  which  the  Stationers'  Company,  or  any  other 
person,  had  obtained  the  sole  right  to  print,  by  entry  in 
their  Register  ;  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that  previous  to 
that  date  this  right  had  been  but  little  respected.  Never- 
theless, it  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  right  of  property 
in  a  book  was  called  the  copy  in  those  days,  whence  the  term 
copyright  came  into  use  in  the  law.  None  of  these  plays 
were  ever  entered  in  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare,  as 
owner  of  the  copy,  but  all  in  the  names  of  the  several  pub- 
lishers ;  and  there  were  different  publishers  of  the  several 
plays  at  dates  not  far  apart.  And  after  the  publication  of 
the  Folio  of  1623,  there  were,  in  like  manner  as  before, 
separate  entries  of  several  of  the  plays  for  license  to  print 
by  other  publishers,  at  different  dates.  Whence  it  may  be 
inferred  that  no  well-recognized  copyright  existed  in  any 
owner  of  those  plays,  or  that  it  was  often  and  readily  trans- 
ferred ;  and  so,  that  the  publishers  of  the  Folio  could  have 
had  but  little  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  copyright  from 
those  "  other  men,"  if  indeed  there  were  any  at  all.  It  is 
barely  possible  that  this  difficulty  may  have  been  the  reason 
why  the  "  Pericles  "  was  not  included  in  the  Folio,  though 
it  may  have  been  rejected  by  the  Editor. 

We  know  from  Blackstone  that  stage-plays  unlicensed 
were  liable  to  indictment  as  public  nuisances,2  and  inas- 
much as  they  had  to  be  licensed  before  they  could  be 
printed,  it  is  certain  that  complete  manuscripts  must  have 

1  Curtis  on  Copyright,  26;  1  Eden  on  Inj.,  cxli. 
a  4  Comm.,  168. 


68  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

been  furnished  to  the  proper  officer  for  examination.  So 
Chettle  said  of  Greene's  "  Groatsworth  of  Wit " :  "I  had 
only  in  the  copy  this  share  ;  it  was  ill  written,  as  sometime 
Greene's  hand  was  none  of  the  best ;  licensed  it  must  be 
ere  it  could  be  printed,  which  could  never  be  if  it  might 
not  be  read."  * 

Now,  as  to  the  "  six  true  and  genuine  copies  "  (spoken 
of  by  Capell),  of  which  only  some  meagre  first  draughts 
had  been  printed  in  quarto,  and  the  sixteen  plays  that  were 
first  printed  in  the  Folio,  if  not,  in  fact,  as  to  all  of  them, 
the   true   original   copies  could  only  mean  the   perfected 
manuscripts :  it  is  plain  they  were  not  the  quartos.     And 
then  the  proposition  must  be,  that  the  complete  and  fin- 
I  ished  manuscripts  were  in  the  possession  of  these  editors 
«   as  managers  of  the  theatre.     They  were  not  committed  to 
their  charge  by  the  will  of  Shakespeare,  nor  do  they  say 
'  anything  in  their  preface  of  having  received  them  from  his 
:  executors.     Of  course,  the  author  must  have  furnished  a 
complete  manuscript  copy  to  the  theatre,  from  which  the 
separate  parts  for  the  use  of  the  actors  might  be  drawn  off. 
The  conjecture  of  Pope,  upon  a  very  superficial  examina- 
tion, that  the  plays  in  the  Folio  were  printed  from  such 
piecemeal  parts,  with  all  the  interpolations,  alterations,  and 
mistakes  of  the  actors,  is  effectually  negatived  by  the  more 
thorough   studies   and  comparisons  of  later  critics.      No 
!  entry  was  made,  nor  any  quarto  printed,  of  any  work  of 
'   Shakespeare  between   1609  and   his  death  in   1616,  but 
between  this  date  and   1623  there  were  six  reprints  of 
quartos,  besides  the  "  Othello,"  of  which  the  first  quarto 
appeared  in  1622.     Whence  came  the  manuscript  of  this 
"  Othello  "  ?     Was  it  furnished  by  the  theatre,  or  by  Hem- 
ing  and  Condell,  or  by  the  author  himself?     It  appears, 
by  an  entry  in  the  official  accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court, 
that  a  play  of  the  "  Moor  of  Venise  "  was  acted  before 
King  James  at  Whitehall,  on  the  first  day  of  November, 

iKind  Hearts  Dream,  (Halliwell,  146.) 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  69 

1604,  by  "his  Majesty's  Servants";  but  Mr.  White  has 
given  some  very  good  reasons  for  believing  that  this  was 
an  older  play  by  another  author,  and  probably  founded 
upon  Cinthio's  novel  called  "  The  Moor  of  Venice,"  espec- 
ially as  the  names  of  Othello  and  Iago  appear  to  have 
been  taken  from  the  "  History  of  the  Prince  of  Denmark," 
which  was  not  printed  until  1 605,  and  that  it  was  not  the 
"  Othello "  of  Shakespeare,  which  bears  internal  evidence 
of  the  matured  hand  of  the  master ;  the  composition  of 
which  he  would  place  as  late  as  1611,  or  afterwards,  mainly 
on  the  ground  that  it  contains  an  unmistakable  allusion  to 
the  creation  of  the  order  of  baronets,  which  took  place  in 
that  year,  supported  by  the  consideration  of  the  rather 
extraordinary  circumstance  that  it  was  not  printed  before 
1622,  thirteen  years  having  then  elapsed  since  the  last 
quarto  of  a  new  play  had  appeared,  and  when  there  were 
nineteen  other  plays,  which  had  never  been  printed,  and 
were  known  to  the  public  onfy  upon  the  stage ;  that  is, 
such  of  them  as  were  known  at  all ;  for,  of  some  of  them, 
as  the  "  Coriolanus,"  the  "  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  and  the 
"  Timon  of  Athens,"  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  had 
ever  appeared  upon  the  stage,  or  were  known  to  the  public, 
before  they  were  printed  in  the  Folio.  This  is,  indeed, 
very  remarkable  ;  and,  taking  Mr.  White's  opinion  to  be 
well  founded,  since  Mr.  Collier's  entry  of  the  "  Othello  "  in 
the  Egerton  Papers  of  the  date  of  1602  has  been  clearly 
shown  to  be  a  downright  forgery,  there  remains  on  record 
no  notice  whatever  of  this  "  Othello  "  until  it  was  entered 
at  Stationers'  Hall  in  October,  1621.  But  that  this  play 
should  have  made  its  first  appearance  at  Court  as  so  many 
others  did,  or  even  at  the  house  of  the  Lord  Keeper  Eger- 
ton, a  friend  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  need  not  be  considered 
as  anything  extraordinary  in  itself,  and  that  it  had  not 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  printers  before  1622,  though  it 
had  been  upon  the  stage  some  years  before  that  date,  Rich- 
ard Burbage,  who  died  in  1619,  having  been  famous  in  the 


70  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

character  of  Othello,  may  be  considered  less  surprising, 
when  it  is  remembered  that  the  same  is  true  of  several 
other  of  the  later  and  greater  plays  of  this  author.1 

The  previous  quartos  may  be  considered  under  three 
heads  :  first  draughts,  surreptitious  editions  of  stolen  copies, 
and  completed  plays.  Of  some  of  these  first  draughts  and 
surreptitious  copies,  the  completed  and  perfected  plays 
appeared  for  the  first  time  in  the  Folio  of  1623  ;  of  others 
of  them,  as  the  "  Hamlet "  for  instance,  we  have  quartos 
nearly  complete  before  1G04  ;  and  of  nineteen  of  the  plays, 
the  first  known  editions  are  in  the  Folio.  And  of  those 
which  had  previously  appeared  in  quarto,  it  is  found  that 
some  of  them  had  been  remodelled  and  rewritten,  that 
others  had  undergone  extensive  revision,  with  important 
additions,  alterations,  omissions,  and  emendations,  and  that 
nearly  all  of  them  had  received  such  critical  correction  and 
emendation  as  necessarily  to  imply  that  they  were  made  by 
the  hand  of  the  master  mmself.  The  "  Othello  "  of  the 
Folio  was  printed  at  about  the  same  time  as  the  quarto, 
and,  as  Mr.  Knight  thinks,  was  probably  struck  off  before 
it,  but  from  the  original  manuscript  without  reference  to 
the  quarto  ;  Mr.  White  agrees  that  it  was  printed  from 
another  and  an  improved  text ;  and  it  is  regularly  divided 
into  acts  and  scenes,  while  the  quarto  is  not,  and  contains 
one  hundred  and  sixty-three  lines,  the  most  striking  in  the 
play,  which  are  not  found  in  the  quarto,  while  the  quarto 
,  does  not  contain  ten  lines  which  are  not  in  the  Folio  ; 2  and 
both  these  critics  agree  that  the  additions  and  corrections 
are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  indicate  the  agency  of  the 
author's  own  hand,  as  in  the  case  of  the  "  Hamlet,"  the 
"  Lear,"  the  "  Richard  II.,"  the  «  Richard  HI.,"  the  "  Henry 
IV.,"  and,  indeed,  of  nearly  all  the  plays.  Now,  whence 
this  difference  in  the  manuscript  copy  ? 

According  to  Mr.  White,  the  "  Love's  Labor  's  Lost "  of 

1  White's  Shakes.,  XI.  362-4. 

2  Knight's  Stud,  of  Shakes. ;  White's  Shakes.,  XL  360-4. 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  71 

the  Folio  corrects  a  great  many  more  errors  than  it  makes, 
and  has  variations  which  must  have  come  from  some  other 
source  than  the  previous  quarto.  The  "  Henry  V."  of  the  j 
Folio  contains  nineteen  hundred  lines  more  than  the  quarto 
of  1600,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Knight,  is  not  only  aug- 
mented by  the  addition  of  new  scenes  and  characters,  but 
there  is  scarcely  a  speech  which  is  not  elaborated.  The 
"  Merry  "Wives  of  Windsor  "  in  the  Folio  contains  nearly  j 
double  the  number  of  lines  that  are  found  in  the  quarto  of 
1602,  and  it  is  greatly  remodelled,  whole  scenes  rewritten, 
speeches  elaborated  and  emended,  and  characters  height- 
ened by  the  addition  of  new  and  distinctive  features.  Slen- 
der is  a  small  affair  in  the  quarto,  and  Shallow  a  different 
person  altogether  in  the  Folio.  The  "  Titus  Andronicus  " 
appears  in  the  Folio  with  a  whole  new  scene  added,  and 
the  "  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  "  in  the  Folio,  according 
to  White,  has  important  corrections  of  a  nature  to  indicate 
that  they  were  made  by  authority ;  and  it  is  greatly  supe- 
rior to  the  quarto  in  respect  of  editorial  supervision.  The 
"Lear"  of  the  Folio,  as  compared  with  the  quarto  of 
1608,  contains  large  additions,  corrections,  and  omissions. 
Some  fifty  lines  of  the  Folio  are  not  found  in  the  quarto,  I 
and  some  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  lines  of  the  quarto, 
comprising  one  whole  scene  and  some  striking  passages,  ' 
are  omitted  in  the  Folio.  The  omissions  can  no  more  be 
attributed  to  Heming  and  Condell  than  the  additions, 
which,  says  Knight,  "  comprise  several  such  minute  touches 
as  none  but  the  hand  of  the  master  could  have  super- 
added."J  The  "Tempest,"  the  "Winter's  Tale,"  the 
"  Measure  for  Measure,"  the  "  Cymbeline,"  the  "  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream,"  the  " Henry  VIII.,"  the  "Julius  Cae- 
sar," the  "  Lear,"  the  "  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  and  the  "  An- 
tony and  Cleopatra,"  (according  to  both  Knight  and  White), 
are  among  those  which  are  printed  with  singular  correctness 
in  the  Folio,  some  of  them  even  to  the  niceties  of  punctua- 
i  Stud,  of  Shakes.,  337. 


72  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

tion,  furnishing  the  most  decisive  evidence  of  unusual  care 
in  the  supervision  of  the  press ;  while  some  few  others 
appear  to  have  had  but  little  attention  from  editor  or  proof- 
reader. But  here  is  enough,  without  dwelling  further  upon 
particular  instances,  to  warrant  the  conclusion,  not  merely 
that  the  Folio  of  1623  must  be  taken  as  the  most  authentic 
edition  of  the  plays  that  we  have,  but  that  it  had  an  edito- 
rial revision,  as  compared  with  all  previous  editions,  far 
beyond  anything  that  can  safely  be  imagined  for  Heming 
and  Condell.  Indeed,  as  to  the  greater  part  of  the  correc- 
tions and  all  the  additions  and  principal  emendations,  they 
can  only  be  attributed,  as  they  have  been,  to  the  author 
himself.  And  then  the  proposition  for  William  Shake- 
speare must  be,  that  they  were  all  made  before  his  death, 
if  not  before  he  retired  from  London ;  and  this  (it  is  per- 
haps conceivably  possible)  he  might  have  done  as  easily  as 
he  could  write  the  "  Tempest,"  the  "  Winter's  Tale,"  and 
the  "Henry  VIIL,"  between  1610  and  1613,  and  the 
"Othello"  before  1616.  But  the  theory  also  requires  us 
to  believe  that  he  furnished  the  new  and  amended  manu- 
script copies  to  the  theatre,  which  were  "  the  true  original 
copies"  in  the  hands  of  Heming  and  Condell,  seven  years 
later,  the  "  Othello "  inclusive.  Having  no  regard  for  his 
reputation  and  fame  as  an  author,  why  should  he  take  all 
this  trouble  and  pains  merely  for  the  benefit  of  the  theatres 
which  he  had  left  ?  Or,  having  such  regard,  why  should 
he  wholly  neglect  to  collect  and  publish  them  himself?  Or 
if  prevented  by  death,  how  should  he  fail  to  make  any  pro- 
vision for  their  preservation  and  publication  afterwards? 
And  finally,  having  furnished  to  the  theatre  the  finished 
manuscript  of  the  "  Othello,"  before  1616,  how  should  there 
be  such  a  difference  between  the  quarto  and  the  folio,  when 
the  manuscript  for  both  must  have  come  from  the  theatre, 
if  not  from  the  hands  of  Heming  and  Condell  ?  And,  in 
either  case,  how  should  an  old  and  imperfect  copy  have 
been  put  into  the  hands  of  the  printer,  when  the  complete 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  73 

and  perfect  manuscript  had  been  in  the  actual  use  of  the 
theatre  for  more  than  seven  years  ! 

But  if  the  real  author  were  still  living  to  make  these 
revisions  himself,  the  whole  mystery  would  be  explained, 
and  especially  this  enigma  of  the  "  Othello,"  which  so  much 
requires  explanation  ;  and  the  comparison  of  a  single  pas- 
sage like  the  following  is  almost  enough  of  itself  to  raise  a 
strong  suspicion  that  the  fact  was  so.  In  the  first  scene  of 
the  second  act,  we  find  this  expression  — 

"  the  thought  whereof 

Doth  like  a  poisonous  mineral  gnaw  my  inwards  " :  — 

and  these  lines,  not  found  in  the  quarto  of  1622,  were 
inserted  in  the  speech  of  Brabantio  (Act  I.  Sc.  2)  in  the 
Folio:1  — 

"  Judge  me  the  world,  if  't  is  not  gross  in  sense, 
That  thou  hast  practised  on  her  with  foul  charms ; 
Abus'd  her  delicate  youth  with  drugs,  or  minerals, 
That  waken  motion.  —  I  '11  have  't  disputed  on ; 
'T  is  probable,  and  palpable  to  thinking." 

All  this  is  in  exact  keeping  with  Bacon's  ideas  of  "  mineral 
medicines,"  that  were  "  safer  for  the  outward  than  inward 
parts,"  and  of  the  effects  which  they  may  produce ;  as  in 
a  speech  he  uses  the  figure  of  *  a  certain  violent  and  min- 
eral spirit  of  bitterness." 

It  is  possible,  too,  to  suppose  that  these  improved  orig- 
inal manuscripts  may  have  passed  from  the  theatre  into  the 
hands  of  Heming  and  Condell ;  that  they  were  submitted 
to  the  Master  of  the  Revels  for  license  and  then  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  printers ;  and  that,  being  superseded  in 
the  use  of  the  stage  by  the  printed  plays,  they  may  have 
finally  gone  to  destruction  ;  but  it  is  extremely  difficult,  as 
Mr.  Halliwell  observes,  to  account  for  their  total  disappear- 
ance. And  it  is  certainly  a  little  remarkable,  that  neither 
these  editors,  who  took  the  pains  to  collect  and  publish 
these  works,  should  have  preserved  a  single  manuscript  as 
i  White's  Shakes.,  XL,  Notes,  494. 


74  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

a  memorial  of  their  departed  fellow,  nor  any  member  of  his 
family,  as  a  memento  in  his  own  handwriting  of  so  distin- 
guished a  poet,  their  ancestor ;  and  that  not  a  single  paper 
of  his  writing  should  have  been  handed  down  within  the 
reach  of  any  tradition.  But  nothing  definite  can  be 
founded  on  an  argument  of  this  kind. 

On  the  other  hand,  taking  Francis  Bacon  for  the  author, 
we  may  suppose  that  the  original  manuscript  copies  would 
be  kept  a  secret  of  his  private  cabinet ;  and  that  transcripts 
only  in  the  handwriting  of  William  Shakespeare  would 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  players.  The  remark  that 
he  never  blotted  out  a  line  would  seem  to  imply  that  the 
manuscripts  which  they  saw  were  in  his  handwriting,  with 
which  they  must  have  been  acquainted.  After  his  death, 
it  would  become  necessary  for  the  real  author  to  find  some 
other  cover  for  the  purpose  of  publication.  His  fellow- 
actors,  Heming  and  Condell,  might  be  selected  to  stand  in 
his  place  as  ostensible  editors.  Little  more  would  be  re- 
quired than  the  use  of  their  names.  The  dedication  and 
preface  would  be  written  by  the  author  himself:  they  have 
been  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Ben  Jonson.  The 
proof-sheets  could  be  privately  sent  to  his  chambers  in 
Bedford  House,  or  in  Gray's  Inn,  or  the  matter  of  proof- 
reading may  have  been  left  to  the  printer.  All  this  would 
imply  that  Heming  and  Condell  became  parties  to  the 
secret ;  in  such  case,  they  would  feel  no  interest  in  the 
manuscripts  ;  and  the  arrangement  with  them  must  have 
been  made,  if  at  all,  as  early  as  1622,  or  soon  after  the 
date  of  Bacon's  fall  from  the  woolsack  and  his  banishment 
to  his  books  and  private  studies  at  Gorhambury,  Bedford 
House,  and  Gray's  Inn.  The  original  manuscripts,  of 
course,  Bacon  would  take  care  to  destroy,  if  determined 
that  the  secret  should  die  with  him. 

We  know  from  Bacon's  will,  that  he  directed  his  servant, 
Henry  Percy,  to  deliver  to  his  brother,  Sir  John  Constable, 
all  his  manuscript  compositions  and  fragments,  to  be  pub- 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  75 

lished  as  he  might  see  fit,  taking  "  the  advice  of  Mr.  Selden 
and  Mr.  Herbert  of  the  Inner  Temple,"  and  also  desired 
his  brother  Constable  and  Sir  William  Boswell,  presently 
after  his  decease,  to  take  into  their  hands  all  his  papers 
whatsoever,  "  which  are  either  in  cabinets,  boxes,  or  presses, 
and  them  to  seal  up  until  they  may  at  their  leisure  peruse 
them." 1  It  would  seem  probable  that  all  these  manuscripts 
and  papers  remained  locked  up  for  some  fourteen  months 
after  his  death,  when  letters  of  administration  were  granted 
to  Sir  Thomas  Rich  and  Mr.  Thomas  Meautys,  and  that 
afterwards  the  greater  part  (at  least)  of  the  manuscripts 
came  into  the  custody  of  Dr.  Rawley,  his  former  chaplain 
and  secretary ;  though  some  of  them  appear  to  have  been 
carried  to  Holland  by  Sir  William  Boswell,  and  placed  in 
the  hands  of  Isaac  Gruter,  who  published  a  part  of  them 
at  Amsterdam  in  1653.  Gruter's  preface  mentions  certain 
moral  and  political  pieces  which  were  not  published  by  him, 
and  which,  according  to  Mr.  Spedding,'2  remain  to  be  ac- 
counted for,  unless  they  were  transferred  to  Dr.  Rawley  to 
be  included  in  the  Opuscula  of  1658.  As  late  as  1652-5, 
certain  letters  of  Isaac  Gruter  state  that  there  still  remained, 
in  the  cabinet  of  Dr.  Rawley,  other  manuscripts  of  the 
"  Verulamian  workmanship,"  which,  being  "  committed  to 
faithful  privacy,"  were  as  yet  "  denied  to  the  public."  The 
actual  character  of  these  writings  is  not  stated,  but,  from 
the  whole  tenor  of  the  correspondence  and  the  relations  of 
the  parties,  it  may  be  distinctly  gathered  that  they  were 
fragments  of  a  philosophical,  political,  or  moral  nature  in 
prose.  There  appears  to  be  no  ground  whatever  for  any 
inference  beyond  this.  Had  the  manuscripts  of  these  plays 
been  left  in  existence  by  Bacon,  it  is  scarcely  conceivable 
that  we  should  never  have  heard  of  them,  and  that  they 
should  even  have  escaped  the  late  thorough  research  of 
Mr.  Spedding.     He  must  have  destroyed  them  before  his 

1  Baconiana,  203;  Craik's  Bacon,  223. 

2  Preface,  Works  (Boston),  V.  187-195. 


76  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

death,  if  this  theory  be  true :  any  other  supposition  would 
seem  to  be  wholly  inadmissible.  Why  he  should  desire 
such  a  secret  to  be  buried  with  him,  may  be  considered  in 
another  place :  at  present,  we  must  take  the  fact  to  be  so. 

On  the  whole,  nothing  is  made  to  appear,  out  of  this 
critical  comparison  of  copies  and  this  modern  research  into 
the  history  of  the  Folio,  necessarily  to  exclude,  or  essen- 
tially to  contradict,  the  hypothesis,  that  this  Folio  may 
have  been  published  at  the  secret  instance  and  under  the 
general  direction  of  Lord  Bacon  himself;  though  it  must 
be  confessed  that  greater  negligence  would  seem  to  be  ex- 
hibited in  some  parts  of  it  than  is  consistent  with  our  ideas, 
at  this  day,  of  that  particular  and  especial  care,  which  the 
exquisite  taste  and  personal  feeling  of  such  an  author 
would  lead  us  to  expect  in  such  a  work.  The  credit  due 
to  the  Folio  for  authenticity  must  be  increased  in  the  same 
degree  that  it  is  rendered  probable  that  it  was  printed  in 
this  manner ;  and  it  is  very  certain  that  Lord  Bacon  was 
exclusively  engaged,  at  this  very  time,  in  contemplations 
and  studies  in  close  retirement,  continuing  his  philosophical 
labors,  completing  his  instaurations  of  all  science,  and  care- 
fully preparing  for  the  press  new  and  improved  editions  of 
works  already  published.  He  was  thus  sedulously  endeav- 
oring to  put  a  fitting  close  to  the  labors  of  his  life  by  care- 
fully transmitting  to  posterity  what  he  deemed  worthy  of 
preservation. 

About  the  22d  of  June,  1621,  at  the  King's  direction,  he 
retired  to  his  country-seat  at  Gorhambury,  where  he  re- 
mained until  sometime  in  the  summer  of  1622.  On  the 
1st  of  September,  1621,  he  writes  thus  to  Buckingham:  — 
"  I  am  much  fallen  in  love  with  a  private  life ;  but  yet  I 
shall  so  spend  my  time  as  shall  not  decay  my  abilities  for 
use."  1  In  another  letter  from  Gorhambury,  dated  Febru- 
ary 3d,  1621-2,2  he  expresses  a  desire  to  get  back  to  Lon- 

i  Letter,  Works  (Philad.),  III.  135. 

2  It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  year  began,  in  those  days,  on  the  25th 
of  March,  and  not  as  now  on  the  1st  day  of  January.  Letter  to  Bucking- 
ham, Works  (Philad.),  III.  141. 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  77 

don,  where,  as  he  says,  "  I  could  have  helps  at  hand  for  my 
writings  and  studies,  wherein  I  spend  my  time."  In  a 
memorandum  made  for  an  expected  interview  with  the 
King,  sometime  in  1 622,  he  writes  thus  :  —  "  My  story  is 
proved  :  I  may  thank  your  Majesty ;  for  I  heard  him  note 
of  Tasso,  that  he  could  know  which  poem  he  made  when 
he  was  in  good  condition,  and  which  when  he  was  a  beg- 
gar :  I  doubt  he  could  make  no  such  observation  of  me." 
Perhaps  not,  your  lordship.  During  the  autumn  of  1622, 
his  letters  are  dated  from  Bedford  House,  in  London,  and 
by  the  8th  of  March,  1623,  he  had  returned  to  his  old 
lodgings  in  Gray's  Inn.  In  a  letter  dated  thence,  March 
22,  1622-3,  he  says  :  —  "  Myself  for  quiet  and  the  better  to 
hold  out,  am  retired  to  Gray's  Inn;  for  when  my  chief 
friends  were  gone  so  far  off,  it  was  time  for  me  to  go  to  a 
cell."1  So  Prospero,  thrust  from  his  dukedom,  is  again 
"  master  of  a  full  poor  cell,"  where, 

"  neglecting  worldly  ends,  all  dedicate 
To  closeness," 

he  is  "  wrapt  in  secret  studies  "  :  —  (  Tempest,  Act  I.  Sc.  2.) 

"  This  cell 's  my  court :  here  have  I  few  attendants, 
And  subjects  none  abroad:  pray  you  look  in."  —  lb.  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  in  June,  1623,  he  writes  to  Mr.  Tobie  Matthew:  — 
"  It  is  true  my  labors  are  now  most  set  to  have  those  works 
I  had  formerly  published,  as  that  of  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing, that  of  Henry  VII.,  that  of  the  Essays,  being  retract- 
ate,  and  made  more  perfect,  well  translated  into  Latin  by 
the  help  of  some  good  pens,  which  forsake  me  not." 2  Of 
these  "  good  pens  "  Ben  Jonson  was  one,  and  George 
Herbert  another.  Again,  in  1623,  he  writes  to  Prince 
Charles :  —  "  For  Henry  the  VIII.,  to  deal  plainly  with 
your  highness,  I  did  despair  of  my  health  this  summer,  as 
I  was  glad  to  choose  some  such  work  as  I  might  compass 
within  days ;  so  far  was  I  from  entering  into  a  work  of 

i  Letter  to  Cottington,  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  439;  (Philad.),  III.  148. 
2  Letter,  Works  (Philad.),  III.  151. 


78  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

length It  began  like  a  fable  of  the  poets ;  but  it 

deserveth  all  in  a  piece  a  worthy  narration." 1  In  the  thick 
crowding  exigencies  of  this  time,  and  in  the  long  list  of 
works  given  to  the  world  during  the  five  years  next  preced- 
ing his  death,  some  explanation  may  be  found,  if  it  be 
required,  for  a  somewhat  negligent  correction  of  the  press, 
when  u  these  trifles  "  were  in  question. 

Steevens  and  others  have  thought  they  could  discover  in 
the  Dedication  and  Preface  to  the  Folio  some  traces  of  the 
hand  of  Ben  Jonson.  But  surely  with  more  reason  it  may 
be  said,  that  in  the  thought,  style,  and  diction  of  both,  there 
is  exhibited  the  very  soul  of  the  real  Shakespeare  himself; 
as  it  were,  ex  pede  Herculem.  True,  the  story  of  the  players 
in  commendation  of  Shakespeare,  that  he  never  blotted  out 
a  line  ("  there  never  was  a  more  groundless  report,"  says 
Pope),  is  repeated  in  the  Preface.  But  it  is  known  that 
Ben  Jonson  was  an  intimate  friend  and  great  admirer  of 
Bacon,  and  so  fine  a  joke  as  this  must  have  been  for  him 
would  not  fail  to  impress  the  mind  of  Bacon  as  well ;  for, 
as  Ben  Jonson  tells  us,  he  could  with  difficulty  "  spare  or 
pass  by  a  jest."  Jonson  also  writes  of  "  my  gentle  Shake- 
speare," — 

"  that  he 

Who  casts  to  write  a  living  line,  must  sweat, 
(Such  as  thine  are)  and  strike  the  second  heat 
Upon  the  Muses  anvile." 

And  so,  according  to  the  Dedication  and  Preface,  "  Mr. 
William  Shakespeare's  Comedies,  Histories,  and  Tragedies  " 
he  would  see  published  from  "the  true  original  copies 
(which  he  would  know  to  be  such),  and  dedicated  to  that 
"  Most  Noble  and  Incomparable  Paire  of  Brethren,"  the 
Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  patrons  of  learning 
and  of  the  theatre,  his  particular  friends,  before  he  also 
should  take  his  departure,  and  not  have  "  the  fate  to  be 
executor  of  his  own  writings,"- though  he  could  not  "but 
i  Letter,  Ibid.  152-3. 


THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES.  79 

know  their  dignity  greater  than  to  descend  to  the  read- 
ing of  these  trifles."  But  the  "  Orphanes  "  should  have 
"  Guardians,  without  ambition  either  of  selfe-profit  or  fame  : 
onely  to  keep  the  memory  of  so  worthy  a  Friend  and  Fel- 
low alive  as  was  our  Shakespeare."  These  plays  had  "  had 
their  triall  alreadie,  and  stood  out  all  Appeales,"  and  they 
should  "  now  come  forth  quitted  rather  by  a  Decree  of 
Court  than  any  purchased  Letters  of  commendation  "  (exe- 
cutors, orphans,  guardians,  trials,  appeals,  and  decrees  of 
court  were  now  ready  on  the  tongue  of  the  ex-chancellor), 
"  cured  and  perfect  of  their  limbes ;  and  all  the  rest,  ab- 
solute in  their  numbers  as  he  conceived  them  "  (what  no 
one  could  better  certify,  "  quam  historiam  legitimam  et  om- 
nibus numeris  suis  absolutam  " 1 )  ;  for  he  was  "  a  happie 
imitator  of  Nature  "  (whereof  the  great  "  interpreter  of 
Nature  "  might  be  sensible),  and  "  a  most  gentle  expresser 
of  it  What  he  thought  he  uttered  with  that  easinesse 
that  wee  have  scarce  received  a  blot  in  his  papers  "  (what 
he  could  not  spare  to  mention),  and  "  his  wit  could  no  more 
lie  hid  than  it  could  be  lost "  (as  witness  these  records  of 
it,  which  should  not  perish).  He  was  to  be  read  "  againe 
and  againe ;  for  if  then  you  do  not  like  him,  surely  you  are 
in  some  manifest  danger  not  to  understand  him."  So 
Heming  and  Condell  would  "  leave  you  to  other  of  his 
Friends,  whom,  if  you  need,  can  be  your  guides  ;  if  you 
need  them  not,  you  can  leade  yourselves  and  others ;  and 
such  readers  "  they  wished  him. 

Indeed  it  is  altogether  such  a  dedication  and  preface  as 
might  be  expected  from  this  "  Jupiter  in  a  thatch'd  house," 
this  secret  inquisitor  of  nature,  learning,  and  art;  who  in  his 
youth  had  taken  "  all  knowledge  to  be  his  province  " ;  whose 
"  vast  contemplative  ends  "  had  embraced  "  the  image  of 
the  universal  world  " ;  but  who,  in  respect  of  these  trifles, 
still  preferred  to  die  with  his  mask  on.  And  such  readers 
would  he  wish  to  have,  who  knew  the  danger,  perhaps  felt 
l  De  Aug.  Scient.,  L.  II.  c.  5.,  Works  (Boston),  II.  202. 


80  THE  TRUE  ORIGINAL  COPIES. 

the  certainty,  that  his  own  age  would  not  fully  understand 

him  ;  but  he  would  take  care  that  these  same  trifles  should 

be  secured  to  the  possession  of  those  "  next  ages  "  which 

might  be  able  to  comprehend  him  aright.     And  he  has  left 

us  also,  perhaps  unwittingly,  the  guides  to  the  knowledge 

of  who  as  well    as  what  this  "  our  Shakespeare "  was ; 

though 

"  As  one  that  had  been  studied  in  his  death, 
To  throw  away  the  dearest  thing  he  ow'd, 
As  't  were  a  careless  trifle  " :  — Macbeth,  Act  J.  Sc.  4. 

or,  as  he  himself  says  of  Aristotle,  "  as  one  that  had  been 
a  challenger  of  all  the  world,  and  raised  infinite  contradic- 
tion ; " *  or  as  one  that  had  been  about  to  leave  the  shores 
of  earth,  and  had  cast  a  lingering  look  behind  upon  a  thing 
known  to  be  "  immortal  as  himself"  ;  as  the  sonnet  sings  : 

u  If  my  dear  love  were  hut  the  child  of  state, 
It  might  for  fortune's  bastard  be  unfather'd, 
As  subject  to  Time's  love,  or  to  Time's  hate, 
Weeds  among  weeds,  or  flowers  with  flowers  gather'd. 
No,  it  was  builded  far  from  accident, 
It  suffers  not  in  smiling  pomp,  nor  falls 
Under  the  blow  of  thralled  discontent, 
Whereto  th'  inviting  time  our  fashion  calls : 
It  fears  not  policy,  that  Heretic, 
Which  works  on  leases  of  short  number'd  hours, 
But  all  alone  stands  hugely  politic, 
That  it  nor  grows  with  heat,  nor  drowns  with  showers. 
To  this  I  witness  call  the  fools  of  time, 
Which  die  for  goodness,  who  have  liv'd  for  crime." 

Sonnet  cxxiv.2 
i  Works  (Boston),  XII.  264. 

2  Shakes.  Sonnets,  (Fac-simile  of  the  ed.  of  1609,  entitled  "  Shake-speares 
Sonnets:  Never  before  Imprinted,")  London,  1862. 


CHAPTER  H. 

PRELIMINARIES. — BACON. 

"  Thou  shalt  know  the  man 
By  the  Athenian  garments  he  hath  on." — Mid.  N.  Dr.,  II.  2. 

§  1.    CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

In  the  outset  of  the  inquiry,  the  contemporaneousness 
of  the  two  men  between  whom  the  question  in  hand  is  sup- 
posed to  lie,  the  comparative  dates  of  their  several  works, 
and  the  leading  facts  and  events  of  their  lives,  must  come 
under  special  consideration,  though  briefly,  as  fundamental 
and  very  important.  The  general  impression  that  has  pre- 
vailed hitherto,  or  until  very  lately,  respecting  the  character 
and  genius  of  Lord  Bacon  and  the  scope  of  his  philoso- 
phy, has  been,  and  is,  of  itself,  a  huge  stumbling-block  in 
the  way  of  the  proposition  that  he  could  ever  have  been  a 
poet  at  all.  A  more  thorough  study  of  the  subject,  under 
the  light  of  judicious  criticism,  will  effectually  dispel  this 
cloud  of  error.  For  the  most  part,  all  true  notion  of  the 
man  has  been  obscured  in  a  murky  atmosphere  of  political 
obfuscation,  a  kind  of  scientific  haze,  misunderstanding, 
misconception,  and  stupid  mistake.  Concerning  him,  as  of 
many  other  men  and  things  in  the  times  long  past,  human 
villanies  have  been  written  into  the  semblance  of  illustri- 
ous history,  wherein  vice  is  put  on  a  par  with  virtue,  and 
the  highest  virtue  below  the  par  of  vice ;  in  which  soaring 
intellect  is  subordinated  to  common-place  ability,  imagina- 
tion held  to  be  a  species  of  folly  or  insanity,  and  metaphys- 
ics treated  as  synonymous  with  moonshine ;  in  which  books 
are  rated  as  fit  food  for  worms,  and  to  be  "  drowned  in 


82  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

book-learning  "  is  incontinently  reckoned  as  a  disqualifica- 
tion for  the  duties  of  life,  whilst  a  certain  overplus  of  com- 
mon sense  is  supposed  to  be  capable  of  all  that  is  great  or 
good ;  in  which  much  learning  is  deemed  worse  than  use- 
less, philosophy  a  monomania  or  a  crime,  all  poets  vagrants, 
and  the  summum  bonum  no  more  nor  less  than  Lord  Coke's 
industrious  money-getting  chief  end  of  man.1  This  inade- 
quate and  altogether  unsatisfactory  account  of  the  matter 
had  its  origin  in  the  confusions  of  a  tyrannical  reign,  in  a 
court  and  time  as  corrupt  as  anything  that  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Italian  or  the  later  Roman  story,  and  in  the  general 
ignorance  in  an  age  that  was  on  the  whole  very  dark, 
though  some  bright  stars  twinkled  in  the  firmament  of  it ; 
and  it  has  been  continued  through  the  succeeding  ages, 
which  have  been  growing  only  less  and  less  dark,  down 
to  our  times.  Basil  Montagu's  meagre  sketch  of  Bacon's 
life  began  to  throw  some  light  into  these  scarcely  penetra- 
ble obscurations.  Lord  Campbell's  superficial  view  of  the 
great  Chancellor,2  not  attempting  to  get  clear  of  the  fogs, 
and  taking  Pope's  epigram  for  basis  and  text,  makes  one 
half  of  his  life  and  character  as  brilliant  as  sunlight,  and  the 
other  as  black  as  Erebus,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  more  of  a 
libel  than  a  life.  The  diligent  researches,  however,  of  later 
scholars  have  given  to  the  world  an  excellent  and  reliable 
edition  of  Lord  Bacon's  Works,  and  brought  forth  many  new 
and  interesting  data  concerning  him,  which  may  be  said  to 
bear  the  stamp  of  historic  truth.8  The  "  Personal  History  " 
and  the  "  Story  "  of  Mr.  Dixon,4  and  the  "  Letters  and  Life  " 
by  Mr.  Spedding,  in  a  more  complete  detail  of  dates,  rec- 
ords, facts,  and  circumstances,  with  due  reverence  for  the 
genius  and  character  of  their  hero,  and  in  much  nearer  sym- 

i  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chief  Jus.  (Philad.,  1851),  I.  279. 

a  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chan.  (Philad.,  1851),  II. 

8  Bacon's  Works,  by  Spedding,  Ellis,  and  Heath,  Boston,  1860-1864;  Let- 
ters and  Life  of  Francis  Bacon,  by  James  Spedding,  London,  1861-2. 

*  Personal  History  of  Lord  Bacon,  Boston,  1861 ;  Story  of  Lord  Bacon's 
Life,  London,  1862. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  83 

pathy  with  the  true  nature  and  quality  of  the  man,  have  pre- 
sented the  great  English  orator,  jurist,  statesman,  and  phil- 
osopher, in  a  very  new  light ;  but  even  these  come  far  short 
of  exhibiting  a  full  and  adequate  picture  of  the  learning, 
philosophy,  purposes,  and  scope  of  this  "learned  Magician." 
Macaulay J  could  see  nothing  in  him  but  a  certain  physical 
science  of  practical  fruit ;  Delia  Bacon 2  discovered  in  him 
a  great  deal  more  than  Macaulay ;  Emerson,8  more,  per- 
haps, than  Delia  Bacon,  finding  that  he  ascended  to  the 
spring-head  of  all  science ;  and  Prof.  Craik  is  certainly  not 
so  very  far  wrong  when  he  says :  "  Bacon  belongs  not  to 
mathematical  or  natural  science,  but  to  literature  and  to 
moral  science  in  its  most  extensive  acceptation  —  to  the 
realm  of  imagination,  of  wit,  of  eloquence,  of  aesthetics,  of 
history,  of  jurisprudence,  of  political  philosophy,  of  logic, 
of  metaphysics,  and  the  investigation  of  the  powers  and 
operations  of  the  human  mind," 4  and  (as  he  might  have 
added)  "  the  order,  operation,  and  Mind  of  Nature."  5 

Francis  Bacon,  son  of  the  Lord-Keeper,  Sir  Nicholas 
Bacon,  was  born  at  York  House  in  London,  on  the  22d  day 
of  January,  1561,  and  so  was  three  years  and  three  months 
older  than  William  Shakespeare.  In  the  thirteenth  year 
of  his  age,  he  entered  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  in 
1577,  after  enrolling  his  name  at  Gray's  Inn  for  the  sake 
of  "  ancienty,"  went  with  Sir  Amias  Paulet  to  the  Court  of 
Paris,  where  he  remained  until  1579,  when,  his  father  hav- 
ing suddenly  died  before  having  made  such  ample  provi- 
sion for  this  youngest  son,  as  he  had  intended  in  due  time, 
he  was  induced  to  return  home,  and  began  his  terms  at 
Gray's  Inn,  in  June  of  that  year,  seeing  now  no  better  pros- 
pect before  him  than  the  profession  of  the  law,  with  some 

1  Essay  on  Bacon. 

tPhil.  of  Shahs.  Plays  Unfolded,  Boston,  1857. 
8  Representative  Men. 

*  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.  and  Language,  by  George  L.  Craik,  LL.  D.  (New 
York,  1862,)  I.  615. 
6  Novum  Organum. 


84  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

hope  of  preferment  in  the  state ;  and  on  the  27th  of  June, 
1582,  he  was  called  to  the  Utter  Bar  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one.  While  in  Paris,  we  may  presume  he  had  made  him- 
self master  of  the  French  language,  and  probably  of  the 
Italian  and  Spanish  also,  if  not  before,  besides  superadding 
to  the  manners  of  the  English  Court  something  of  the 
polish  of  the  French.  On  his  return  home,  he  was  charged 
with  bearing  a  diplomatic  despatch  to  the  virgin  Queen,  in 
which  he  was  mentioned  as  "  of  great  hope,  and  endued 
with  many  good  and  singular  parts."  In  1584,  with  the 
help  of  his  uncle,  Lord  Burleigh,  he  is  elected  to  Parlia- 
ment for  two  boroughs,  and,  not  much  later,  ventures  to 
undertake  a  "  Letter  of  Advice  to  Queen  Elizabeth ; "  but 
in  1586,  he  is  still  living,  "  as  it  were,  in  umbra,  and  not 
in  public  or  frequent  action,"  and  his  bashful  nature  and 
studious  seclusion  are  mistaken  to  his  prejudice  for  pride 
and  arrogance.1  In  1587,  when  William  Shakespeare  is 
said  to  have  come  to  London,  Francis  Bacon  has  become 
a  Bencher,  and  sits  at  the  Reader's  table,  in  Gray's  Inn, 
and,  at  the  Christmas  Revels  of  that  year,  he  assists  the 
Gentlemen  of  his  Inn  in  getting  up  the  tragedy  of  the 
"  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,"  and  certain  masques  and  dumb- 
shows,  for  which  he  writes,  at  least,  some  "  additional 
speeches,"  to  be  exhibited  before  the  Queen  at  Green- 
wich,2 while  William  Shakespeare  is  yet  but  a  mere  "  ser- 
vitor" at  the  Blackfriars,  and  still  unsuspected  of  being 
the  author  of  anything.  In  1588-9,  he  is  a  member  of 
Parliament  for  Liverpool,  having  already  acquired  an  as- 
cendency as  an  orator  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
writes  a  paper  on  Church  Controversies,  and  a  draft  of  a 
letter  for  Secretary  Walsingham  on  the  conduct  of  the 
Queen's  government  towards  Papists  and  Dissenters,  under 
the  supervision  of  the  Archbishop,  his  old  tutor  at  Cam- 
bridge.    About  the  year  1590,  he  makes  the  acquaintance 

1  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life,  I.  59. 

2  Collier's  Hist.  Dram.  Poetry,  I.  267;  Knight's  Biog.  of  Shakes.,  326. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  85 

of  the  rising  young  Earl  of  Essex,  also  a  Cambridge 
scholar,  whose  literary  abilities,  varied  accomplishments, 
comprehensive  views,  and  love  for  the  liberal  arts,  were 
much  in  accord  with  his  own.  He  pursues  his  studies  at 
Gray's  Inn,  making  an  occasional  visit  to  his  mother's 
country-seat  of  Gorhambury,  and  for  the  vacations  and 
greater  intervals  of  leisure  from  Law  and  the  Court,  he 
has  his  retired  and  comfortable  lodge  at  Twickenham  Park, 
an  estate  of  his  brother  Edward,  delightfully  situated  on 
the  Thames,  near  Twickenham  (a  place  afterwards  famous 
as  the  residence  of  Pope),  where,  as  early  as  1592,  through 
the  interest  of  his  friend,  the  Earl  of  Essex,  he  has  the 
honor  of  a  visit  from  the  Queen  herself,  and  presents  her 
with  a  Sonnet  in  compliment  to  that  "generous  noble- 
man ; " 1  and  here  also,  in  after  years,  the  Queen  honors 
him  with  her  presence,  on  various  occasions,  and  frequent 
opportunities  occur  of  addressing  other  Sonnets  to  his 
sovereign  mistress's  eyebrow,  though  professing  (as  he 
says  in  parenthesis)  "  not  to  be  a  poet."  His  habits  are 
regular,  frugal,  and  temperate,  and  his  life  pure,  but  he 
lives  like  a  gentleman,  a  scholar,  a  member  of  Parliament 
and  a  courtier ;  and  with  comparatively  little  ready  money 
and  means  rather  in  prospect  than  in  possession,  and  with 
these  expensive  ways,  he  is  at  length  compelled  to  get 
help  from  the  Lombards  and  Jews.  The  Queen  grants 
him  the  reversion  of  the  Clerkship  of  the  Star-Chamber, 
which,  not  coming  into  possession  before  1608,  was  but 
as  *  another  man's  ground  buttailing  upon  his  house  ;  which 
might  mend  his  prospect  but  did  not  fill  his  barn."  With 
little  professional  business,  and  no  promotion  coming,  he 
ventures  to  address  a  letter  (1592)  to  Lord  Burghley,  "the 
Atlas  of  this  commonwealth,"  as  he  styles  him,  the  "  hon- 
our "  of  his  house,  and  "  the  second  founder  "  of  his  "  poor 
estate,"  in  which  he  says  :  "  I  wax  now  somewhat  ancient ; 
one-and-thirty  years  is  a  great  deal  of  sand  in  the  hour- 

l  Nichols'  Progresses  of  Q.  Eliz.  (London,  1823),  III.  190. 


86  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

glass.  My  health,  I  thank  God,  I  find  confirmed ;  and  I 
do  not  fear  that  action  shall  impair  it,  because  I  account 
my  ordinary  course  of  study  and  meditation  to  be  more 
painful  than  most  parts  of  action  are.  I  ever  bear  a 
mind  (in  some  middle  place  that  I  could  discharge)  to 
serve  her  Majesty;  not  as  a  man  born  under  Sol,  that 
loveth  honour ;  nor  under  Jupiter,  that  loveth  business, 
(for  the  contemplative  planet  carrieth  me  away  wholly)  ; 
but  as  a  man  born  under  an  excellent  Sovereign,  that  de- 
serveth  the  dedication  of  all  men's  abilities.  .  .  Again  the 
meanness  of  my  estate  doth  somewhat  move  me ;  for 
though  I  cannot  accuse  myself  that  I  am  either  prodigal 
or  slothful,  yet  my  health  is  not  to  spend,  nor  my  course 
to  get.  Lastly,  I  confess  that  I  have  as  vast  contemplative 
ends  as  I  have  moderate  civil  ends ;  for  I  have  taken 
all  knowledge  to  be  my  province.  .  .  This,  whether  it  be 
curiosity,  or  vain  glory,  or  nature,  or  (if  one  take  it  favor- 
ably) philanthropia,  is  so  fixed  in  my  mind  as  it  cannot  be 
removed.  .  .  And  if  your  Lordship  will  not  carry  me  on, 
I  will  not  do  as  Anaxagoras  did,  who  reduced  himself  with 
contemplation  to  voluntary  poverty ;  but  this  I  will  do : 
I  will  sell  the  inheritance  that  I  have,  and  purchase  some 
lease  of  quick  revenue,  or  some  office  of  gain  that  shall  be 
executed  by  deputy,  and  so  give  over  all  care  of  service, 
and  become  some  sorry  book-maker,  or  a  true  pioneer  in 
that  mine  of  truth  which  (he  said)  lay  so  deep." x  Not 
far  from  this  time  were  written  the  speeches  in  Praise  of 
the  Queen  and  in  Praise  of  Knowledge,  doubtless  in- 
tended for  a  Masque  to  be  exhibited  before  her  upon  some 
occasion  of  which  there  is  no  record,  further  than  that  on 
the  celebration  of  the  Queen's  day,  in  1592,  a  Device  was 
presented  by  Essex.2  Not  much  later,  we  find  him  read- 
ing Virgil,  Ovid,  Horace,  Seneca,  the  Psalms,  the  Prov- 
erbs, Erasmus'  Adagia,  and  various  French  and  Italian 
authors ;  in  short,  taking  a  survey  of  all  the  ancient  and 
l  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life,  I.  108.  2  Ibid.  1. 120. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  87 

modern  learning,  and  making  notes,  abstracts,  and  a 
"  Promus  of  Formularies  and  Elegancies."  At  the  same 
time,  Robert  Greene  discovers  that  a  new  poet  has  arisen, 
who  is  getting  to  be  "  the  only  Shake-scene  in  a  countrey." 
He  soon  begins  to  be  pestered  with  duns  and  Jews'  bonds, 
and  is  "  poor  and  sick,  working  for  bread."  His  brother 
Anthony  now  occupies  rooms  in  Gray's  Inn,  having  re- 
turned in  impaired  health  from  his  travels  abroad,  where 
he  has  even  had  a  Papist  in  his  service  to  the  great  horror 
of  the  good  Lady  Ann,  his  mother,  a  fiery,  vehement,  pious, 
grave,  and  affectionate  soul,  in  creed  a  Calvinist,  and  in 
morals  a  Puritan  of  the  stricter  sect,  who  enjoins  upon 
him  to  "  use  prayer  twice  in  a  day,"  and  suggests  that  his 
brother  Francis  "  is  too  negligent  herein : "  without  relig- 
ion, there  is  little  to  be  expected  for  either  of  them  from 
the  orthodox  Lord  Treasurer.  The  good  mother  also 
begins  to  observe  that  Francis  is  "continually  sickly,  .  . 
by  untimely  going  to  bed,  and  then  musing  nescio  quid 
when  he  should  sleep."  We  get  only  an  occasional  glimpse 
of  his  private  and  secret  studies,  or  of  the  exigencies  that 
made  them  private. 

In  the  mean  time,  he  has  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
theatre-going  young  lords  and  courtiers,  Essex,  Southamp- 
ton, Rutland,  Montgomery,  and  the  rest,  and  on  the  18th 
of  July,  1593,  the  Earl  of  Essex  is  on  a  visit  of  "  three 
hours  to  Francis  Bacon  and  his  brother  Anthony,  at 
Twickenham  Park,"  where  he  promises  "  to  set  up  his 
whole  rest  of  favour  and  credit "  with  the  Queen  for  "  Mr. 
Francis  Bacon's  preferment  before  Mr.  Edward  Coke."1 
He  becomes  attached  to  the  party  and  service  of  the  Earl 
of  Essex,  and  is  made  his  confidential  friend,  political 
counsellor,  and  legal  adviser,  in  September  following ;  and 
at  the  same  time,  his  brother  Anthony  becomes  Essex's 
Secretary.  The  "  Venus  and  Adonis "  was  entered  at 
Stationers'  Hall  in  April,  1593,  and  was  printed  in  the 
i  Nichols'  Prog,  of  Q.  Eliz.,  III.  190,  n.  (2). 


88  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

same  year.  The  author  (if  it  were  Bacon)  did  not  mean 
to  profess  to  be  a  poet,  and  it  is  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  under  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare ; 
and  the  "  Rape  of  Lucrece,"  entered  in  May,  1594,  soon 
follows.  Some  eight  or  ten  of  the  earlier  plays  are  al- 
ready upon  the  stage,  and  are  generally  taken  to  be  the 
work  of  William  Shakespeare,  though  none  of  them  have 
been  as  yet  printed  under  his  name ;  but  Greene  and 
Chettle  have  uttered  their  sharp  protest  against  the  pre- 
tensions of  this  "  upstart  crow  beautified  with  our  feathers," 
denouncing  him  as  "  an  absolute  Johannes  factotum  "  and 
"the  only  Shake-scene  in  a  countrey."  It  is  in  August, 
1594,  that  we  get  some  further  insight  into  the  more  inti- 
mate relations  of  these  theatre-loving  associates,  learning 
from  the  letters  of  Lady  Ann  Bacon,  first  made  public  by 
Mr.  Dixon,  that  they  are  having  plays  performed  at  An- 
thony's house,  near  the  Bull  Inn,  "  very  much  to  the  de- 
light of  Essex  and  his  jovial  crew  "  (of  whom  Southampton 
is,  of  course,  one),  but  as  the  pious  Lady  Ann  fears,  "  to 
the  peril  of  her  sons'  souls ; "  for  plays  and  novels  are 
burnt  privately  by  the  Bishops,  and  publicly  by  the  Puri- 
tans. 

In  the  beginning  of  1593,  Bacon  made  that  celebrated 
speech  on  the  Subsidy,  which  boldly  sustained  the  privi- 
lege of  Parliament,  but  defeated  Burghley,  and  so  deeply 
offended  the  Queen,  that  he  was  denied  access  at  Court 
for  the  next  three  years ;  though  after  much  solicitation 
of  his  friends,  and  being  too  great  a  favorite  with  her 
Majesty  to  be  wholly  cast  off,  she  had  so  far  relented  by 
the  month  of  June,  1594,  as  to  employ  him  as  her  counsel 
(verbi  reg.  Eliz.)  in  some  legal  business.  Nevertheless, 
Essex  undertook  to  make  good  his  engagement  of  his 
"whole  rest  of  favour  and  credit"  to  secure  his  prefer- 
ment to  the  place  of  Attorney-General  before  "  Mr.  Ed- 
ward Coke."  Cecil  said  it  was  useless  to  think  of  office, 
when  he  was  denied  access  at  the  palace.     Another  ob- 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  89 

jection  was,  that  he  had  had  but  little  or  no  practice 
in  the  courts;  and  to  obviate  this,  he  began  to  appear 
more  frequently  in  court  in  the  spring  of  1594,  arguing 
a  number  of  causes  with  great  learning  and  eloquence, 
so  that  Mr.  Gosnold,  who  heard  him,  observing  how  he 
"spangled  his  speech"  with  "unusual  words,"  was  per- 
suaded that  the  "  Bacon  would  be  too  hard  for  the  Cook  "  ; 
but  Coke,  as  Speaker  of  the  House,  had  bowed  to  her 
Majesty's  prerogative,  taking  care  on  nearly  all  occa- 
sions to  give  satisfaction,  and  not  offence,  and  was  made 
Attorney-General,  the  "  Cook "  proving  too  hard  for  the 
Bacon.  The  Solicitorship  still  remained.  Essex,  Eger- 
ton,  Burghley,  Cecil,  Greville,  and  a  host  of  friends,  con- 
tinued to  press  his  suit  for  this  "second  place,"  from 
March,  1594,  until  November,  1595 ;  but  the  Queen  was 
in  "no  haste  to  determine  of  the  place."  Bacon,  whose 
"  nature  can  take  no  evil  ply,"  having  been  "  voiced  with 
great  expectation,"  and  "with  the  wishes  of  most  men 
to  the  higher  place,"  cannot  but  conclude  with  himself 
"  that  no  man  ever  read  a  more  exquisite  disgrace."  '  He 
nearly  resolves,  "  with  this  disgrace "  of  his  fortune,  to 
retire  "with  a  couple  of  men  to  Cambridge,"  and  there 
spend  his  life  in  "studies  and  contemplations,  without 
looking  back."  Essex  still  presses  the  matter  upon  every 
opportunity.  When  the  Queen  visits  him,  she  answers  that 
"  she  did  not  come  for  that,"  and  "  stops  his  mouth  ; "  and 
when  he  visits  her,  she  acknowledges  he  had  a  great  wit, 
and  an  excellent  gift  of  speech,  and  much  other  good 
learning,  but  in  law  she  rather  thought  he  could  show  to 
the  uttermost  of  his  knowledge,  and  was  not  deep ;  and 
she  shows  "  her  mislike  of  the  suit "  as  well  as  he  his  "  af- 
fection in  it,"  and  thinks,  "  if  there  were  a  yielding,  it  was 

i  Letter  to  Essex  (1594),  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  170.  Here  I  prefer  the 
reading  of  Montagu.  Mr.  Spedding,  taking  the  word  read  to  be  the  abbre- 
viation rec'd,  writes  received;  but  it  is  more  probably  the  same  Baconian 
idiom,  which  appears  again  in  the  Henry  VIII.  thus :  "  and  read  the  per- 
fect ways  of  honour."  —  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  I.  291. 


90  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

fitter  to  be  "  of  his  side.1  After  July,  however,  he  is  em- 
ployed as  Queen's  counsel,  but  when  the  Solicitorship  is 
named  (says  Essex),  "she  did  fly  the  tilt,"  and  would  not 
see  him.  The  unfortunate  Subsidy  Speech  could  not  be 
forgiven,  and  the  matter  hangs  for  a  long  time  undeter- 
mined. Bacon  keeps  his  terms  at  Gray's  Inn,  but  spends 
the  greater  part  of  his  time  at  Twickenham  Park,  or  at 
Essex's  house,  where  he  is  rapt  in  secret  studies  and 
philosophic  contemplations;  and  at  the  same  time,  both 
Essex  and  himself  are  busy  in  all  suitable  ways,  plying 
their  arts  to  regain  the  Queen's  favor.  Though  deeply 
in  debt,  at  this  time,  Bacon  offers  her  the  present  of  a 
rich  and  costly  jewel,  which  she  declines  to  accept ;  thus, 
thinks  Greville,  almost  pronouncing  sentence  of  despair. 
In  December,  1594,  the  Christmas  Bevels  at  Gray's  Inn 
come  on.  They  are  gotten  up  with  extraordinary  magnifi- 
cence, this  year,  and  the  whole  Court  are  most  sump- 
tuously and  splendidly  entertained  with  plays,  masques, 
triumphs,  and  dumb  shows.  Lady  Ann  Bacon  writes  to 
Anthony,  that  she  "  trusts  they  will  not  mum,  nor  mask, 
nor  sinfully  revel"  ;  but  Francis,  as  before  in  1587,  and  on 
other  later  occasions,  takes  a  leading  part  in  the  prepara- 
tions, writing  a  Masque,  for  one  thing,  which  Mr.  Sped- 
ding  finds  to  be  undoubtedly  his  work,  and  certain  humor- 
ous Regulations  for  "  the  Heroical  Order  of  the  Helmet," 
and  other  pieces,  which  Mr.  Spedding  rather  thinks  not 
his  work ;  and  upon  this  same  occasion,  the  Shakespearean 
"  Comedy  of  Errors  "  makes  its  first  appearance  upon  any 
stage,  pretty  certainly  also  the  work  of  Francis  Bacon  (as 
I  will  endeavor  to  show).  Li  this  year  1594,  the  "  Titus 
Andronicus"  is  first  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  and  the 
second  part  of  the  "  Henry  VI."  (then  styled  the  "  Con- 
tention of  the  Two  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster")  is 
first  printed,  and  the  third  part  (then  styled  the  "True 
Tragedy  of  the  Duke  of  York")  follows  in  1595 ;  but  they 
had  been  written  long  before. 
1  Essex  to  Bacon,  (18  May,  1594). — Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  1. 297. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  91 

Bacon  continues  to  be  assiduously  engaged  with  his 
public  avocations  and  bis  private  studies.  Whether  from 
the  mortification  of  disappointment  or  the  effect  of  mid- 
night musings  when  he  should  be  asleep,  the  good  mother 
observes,  again,  that  "  inward  secret  grief  hindereth  his 
health,"  and  "everybody  saith  he  looks  thin  and  pale." 
Moreover,  when  her  ladyship  is  applied  to  for  assistance 
in  the  way  of  meeting  his  pecuniary  obligations,  she  breaks 
out  furiously  upon  "  that  bloody  Percy,"  and  "  that  Jones," 
as  "  proud,  profane,  costly  fellows,  whose  being  about  him," 
she  verily  believes,  "  the  Lord  God  doth  mislike."  This 
was  his  servant  Henry  Percy,  in  whose  charge  he  left  his 
manuscripts  by  his  will.  The  particular  ground  of  Lady 
Ann's  dislike  of  his  men,  more  than  that  they  were  ex- 
pensive, does  not  appear ;  but  she  insinuates  that  "  he  hath 
nourished  most  sinful  proud  villains  wilfully." 

During  the  year  1595,  he  lives  for  the  most  part  in  the 
shady  retirement  of  Twickenham  Park,  amidst  his  books 
and  flower-gardens,  abandoning  the  Court  altogether.  At 
length  he  concludes  that  he  was  taking  "  duty  too  exactly," 
and  not  "  according  to  the  dregs  of  this  age,"  and  fearing 
lest  his  unwonted  seclusion  should  be  interpreted  to  his 
prejudice  at  the  palace,  he  addresses  a  letter  to  the  Lord- 
Keeper  Puckering,  on  the  25th  of  May,  1595,  desiring  him 
to  apologize  to  her  Majesty  for  the  "  nine  days'  wonder " 
of  his  absence ;  for,  as  the  letter  proceeds,  "  it  may  be, 
when  her  Majesty  hath  tried  others,  she  will  think  of  him 
that  she  hath  cast  aside.  For  I  will  take  it  upon  that 
which  her  Majesty  hath  often  said,  that  she  doth  reserve 
me,  and  not  reject  me." 1  And  in  July,  the  Queen,  as  if 
to  keep  his  courage  up,  or  in  recognition  of  his  professional 
services,  bestows  on  him  the  estate  of  Pitts ;  but  as  to  the 
Solicitorship,  it  is  probable  that  the  Cecils  and  the  Lord- 
Keeper  Puckering,  having  at  their  service  any  number  of 
Brograves,  Branthwaytes,  and  black-letter  Flemings,  not 

l  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  I.  360. 


92  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

connected  with  a  rival  party,  have  fixed  all  that,  and  she 
will  hear  no  more  of  it.  The  jealousy  of  the  Cecils,  or 
Essex,  or  the  Subsidy  Speech  which  Burghley  thinks  to 
be  the  chief  difficulty,  and  which  Bacon  still  justifies  rather 
than  retracts,  finally  mars  all,  and  it  is  decided,  at  last,  that 
Sergeant  Fleming,  whose  best  qualification  seems  to  have 
been  the  negative  one  of  standing  in  nobody's  way,  though 
admitted  by  Bacon  himself  not  to  be  any  such  "  insufficient 
obscure  idole  man,"  as  that  his  appointment  could  justly  be 
taken  as  a  personal  affront,  shall  be  made  Solicitor ;  and 
again,  "  no  man  ever  read  a  more  exquisite  disgrace  "  than 
Francis  Bacon.  He  cannot  refrain  from  uttering  a  little 
indignation  against  the  Lord  Keeper  for  "  failing  him  and 
crossing  him  now  in  the  conclusion,  when  friends  are  best 
tried  "  ;  but  he  takes  care  to  give  no  offence  to  the  Queen. 
In  October,  he  writes  to  the  Lord  Keeper  again :  "  I  am  now 
at  Twicknam  Park,  where  I  think  to  stay ;  for  her  Majesty 
placing  a  Solicitor,  my  travail  shall  not  need  in  her  causes  ; 
though  whensoever  her  Majesty  shall  like  to  employ  me  in 
any  particular,  I  shall  be  ready  to  do  her  willing  service."  1 
Again  he  is  almost  persuaded  to  abandon  a  public  life, 
to  sell  his  inheritance,  to  spend  some  time  in  travels 
abroad,  and  finally  to  become  a  sorry  book-maker,  or  a 
pioneer  in  Anaxagoras'  deep  mine.  "  For  to  be  as  I  told 
you,"  he  writes  to  Greville,  "  like  a  child  following  a  bird, 
which  when  he  is  nearest  flieth  away  and  lighteth  a  little 
before,  and  then  the  child  after  it  again,  and  so  in  infinitum, 
I  am  weary  of  it,"  — 

"Applying  fears  to  hopes,  and  hopes  to  fears, 
Still  losing  when  I  saw  myself  to  win."  —  Sonnet  cxix. 

Among  the  objections  urged  against  him,  it  was  repre- 
sented that  he  was  a  man  given  to  "speculations"  rather 
than  business,  and  that  he  had  not  devoted  himself  to  the 
practice  of  law,  and  he  himself  believed  that  her  Majesty's 
impression  against  him  was  due  less  to  her  remembrance  of 
1  Letter  (11  Oct.  1595);  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  I.  368. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  93 

his  Subsidy  Speech  than  to  "  her  conceit  otherwise  "  of  his 

"  insufficiency  :  "  * 

"  then  no  more  remains 

But  that,  to  your  sufficiency,  —  as  your  worth  is  able, — 
And  let  them  work."  —  Measure  for  Measure,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

It  is  plain  that  his  time  and  attention  were  mainly  given 
to  philosophical  and  literary  studies.  In  this  same  letter 
he  admits  to  Burghley,  "  It  is  true,  my  life  hath  been  so 
private  as  I  have  had  no  means  to  do  your  Lordship  ser- 
vice." And  in  October,  again,  he  writes  in  a  letter  to 
Essex,  touching  this  matter  of  his  promotion  in  the  State : 
"  For  means  I  value  that  most ;  and  the  rather  because  I 
am  purposed  not  to  follow  the  practice  of  the  law :  (If  her 
Majesty  command  me  in  any  particular,  I  shall  be  ready  to 
do  her  willing  service  :)  and  my  reason  is  only,  because  it 
drinketh  too  much  time,  which  I  have  dedicated  to  better 
purposes.  But  even  for  that  point  of  estate  and  means,  I 
partly  lean  to  Thales'  opinion,  That  a  philosopher  may  be 
rich  if  he  will."  2 

On  the  5th  of  November  1595,  Fleming  receives  his 
commission  as  Solicitor  -  General,  and,  some  twelve  days 
afterwards,  the  Queen  further  solaces  the  disappointment 
of  Bacon  with  the  grant  of  the  reversion  of  Twickenham 
Park  itself.  He  becomes  fully  reconciled  to  her  favor,  and 
his  hopes  revive.  During  the  same  month,  Essex  prepares 
a  magnificent  entertainment  for  her  Majesty  at  his  own 
house,  and  Bacon  writes  a  Masque  for  the  occasion.  It  is 
not  far  from  this  time  that  Essex  bestows  upon  Bacon,  in 
requital  of  his  friendship  and  his  personal  services,  an  es- 
tate worth  £1800,  including,  says  Nichols,  "  a  highly  orna- 
mented mansion,  particularly  celebrated  for  its  pleasure- 
grounds,  which  were  called  the  Garden  of  Paradise."8 
And  it  was  not  long  before  this  time  that  Southampton, 
according  to  a  tradition  handed  down  by  Rowe  from  Sir 

1  Letter  to  Burghletj  (7  June,  1595);  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  1.362. 

2  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life,  I.  372. 
8  Prog.  Q.  Eliz.,  III.  191. 


94  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

"William  Davenant,  is  said  to  have  bestowed  upon  Shake- 
speare the  munificent  gift  of  £1000,  which  might  (with 
Halliwell)  be  deemed  almost  incredible,  unless  (as  Collier 
supposes)  the  money  (whatever  the  sum)  was  in  fact  a  con- 
tribution for  the  building  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  which  was 
erected  in  1594. 

In  1596,  the  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  appears,  and  the 
"  King  John  "  had  been  written,  not  long  before  this  date. 
William  Shakespeare  had  been  for  some  time  a  sharer  in 
the  Globe  and  Blackfriars,  and,  as  the  traditions  say,  now 
kept  his  lodgings  near  the  Bear  Garden  in  Southwark.  In 
the  next  year,  he  is  able  to  purchase  New  Place  at  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon,  and  appears  to  have  been  quite  extensively 
engaged  in  agricultural  operations  and  various  kinds  of  traf- 
fic, while  the  "  Richard  II.,"  the  "  Richard  III.,"  and  the 
"  Merchant  of  Venice,"  were  getting  ready  for  the  stage. 
Bacon  dedicates  his  "  Maxims  of  the  Law  "  to  "  Her  Sa- 
cred Majesty,"  writes  his  Advice  to  Essex,  and  drafts  for 
Essex  the  letters  of  Advice  to  Greville  and  to  Rutland  on 
his  Travels.  He  is  also  regularly  employed  as  Queen's 
Counsel,  and,  in  the  intervals  of  business  in  London,  is  dil- 
igently engaged  "  at  Twicnam,"  on  his  "  Colours  of  Good 
and  Evil,"  and  his  "  Meditationes  Sacrae."  His  smaller 
works  are  the  "  recreations  "  of  his  other  studies,  and,  as 
we  learn  from  his  letter  to  Mountjoy,  it  is  now  "  his  man- 
ner and  rule  to  keep  state  in  contemplative  matters." x  The 
first  edition  of  the  Essays,  which  had  strayed  from  their 
master  in  manuscript,  and  were  in  danger  of  falling  into 
the  hands  of  the  printers,  is  published  by  himself  early  in 
1597,  in  anticipation  of  surreptitious  copies ;  but  scarcely 
two  years  later,  a  collection  of  sonnets  and  minor  poems, 
which  appear  to  have  strayed  in  like  manner  from  their 
author,  did  happen  to  come  into  the  hands  of  Jaggard, 
afterwards  printer  of  the  Essays,  and  got  surreptitiously 

1  Spedding's  Preface  to  the  Colours  of  Good  and  Evil,  Works  (Boston), 
Xni.  262. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  95 

printed,  as  it  would  seem.  Though  now  encouraged  by  the 
increasing  favor  of  the  Queen  and  his  successes  in  Parlia- 
ment (in  which  he  has  become  a  powerful  leader),  he  is  still 
troubled  on  account  of  "  the  meanness  "  of  his  estate  ;  and 
his  biographers  suggest  that  it  was  for  this  reason,  among 
others,  that  he  sought  the  hand  of  the  rich  and  beautiful 
Lady  Hatton,  now  a  lovely  young  widow,  and  a  daughter 
of  Sir  Thomas  Cecil,  eldest  son  of  Lord  Burghley ;  but  the 
Cecils  were  still  awake,  and  more  set  upon  advancing  a 
serviceable  instrument  of  their  own  party  than  the  friend 
and  counsellor  of  Essex,  who,  if  too  far  promoted  in  this 
direction,  might  at  length  rival  the  pretensions  of  his 
cousin,  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  to  the  higher  places  in  the  state, 
and  they  prevailed  on  the  young  lady,  much  against  her 
own  inclination,  to  marry  the  crabbed  Attorney-General 
Coke,  a  widower  of  forty-six,  with  a  large  practice,  an  im- 
mense fortune,  and  perhaps  more  than  the  eleven  objec- 
tions, ten  children  and  himself,  — 

"  Was  ever  woman  in  this  humour  woo'd  ? 
Was  ever  woman  in  this  humour  won  ?  " 

Richard  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Between  1596  and  1600,  the  "  Richard  II.,"  the  "  Rich- 
ard III.,"  the  "Merchant  of  Venice,"  the  "Much  Ado 
About  Nothing,"  the  two  parts  of  the  "  Henry  IV.,"  the 
"  Henry  V.,"  and  the  "  Merry  Wives  of  "Windsor,"  make 
their  appearance  upon  the  stage ;  and  it  is  no  wonder,  per- 
haps, that  we  find  it  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  time, 
that  Southampton,  Rutland,  and  the  rest  of  Essex's  jovial 
crew.  u  pass  away  their  time  in  London  merely  in  going  to 
plays  every  day."  But  Bacon  himself,  though  his  published 
works  were  gaining  for  him  an  eminent  reputation  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  his  practice  at  the  bar  was  increasing,  and 
his  prospects  brightening,  had  the  misfortune  still  to  be 
arrested  for  debt  by  "  the  Lombard  "  ;  and  he  was  actually 
"  confined  in  a  spunging-house  "  (according  to  the  taunt  of 
Coke),  before  he  could  get  out  of  the  Shylock's  clutches. 


96  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

At  the  same  time,  he  is  making  eloquent  speeches  in  Par- 
liament, and  carrying  bills  for  "  the  increase  of  husbandry 
and  tillage  "  and  "  the  increase  of  people  "  ;  and  the  Queen 
acknowledges  his  public  services,  and  signifies  her  continu- 
ing personal  favor  by  making  him  a  liberal  grant  of  the 
Rectory  and  Church  of  Cheltenham  and  the  Chapel  of 
Charlton  Kings,  with  the  lands  and  revenues  thereto  be- 
longing. 

Now  comes  on  the  affair  of  Ireland  and  the  Essex 
treason.  As  early  as  1597,  Essex,  receiving  from  Bacon 
wiser  counsel  than  he  liked,  touching  his  military  ambition 
and  his  sinister  courses,  ceases  to  come  to  Gray's  Inn  for 
advice ;  but  takes  to  the  Jesuits  and  the  scheme  of  going 
to  Ireland,  and  at  length  deposing  the  Queen  from  her 
throne.  He  makes  a  treasonable  truce  with  the  rebel  Ty- 
rone, and  suddenly  returns  home  without  orders,  in  Sep- 
tember 1599,  much  to  the  surprise  and  indignation  of  the 
Queen ;  and  shortly  afterwards  he  is  put  under  arrest  at 
the  Lord  Keeper's  house.  During  these  years,  the  play  of 
"  Richard  II."  has  had  a  great  run  upon  the  stage,  and  re- 
ceived the  special  countenance  of  Essex,  Southampton,  and 
their  associates ;  and  two  editions  have  been  printed,  but 
with  the  scene  "  containing  the  deposing  of  a  king  "  left 
out ;  and  in  1599,  Dr.  Hayward's  pamphlet  of  the  u  First 
Yeare  of  King  Henry  the  Fourth,"  which  was  a  studied 
and  treasonable  adaptation  of  the  story  of  Bolingbroke  and 
King  Richard  the  Second  to  the  present  state  of  affairs, 
being  printed  with  a  dedication  to  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
arouses  the  anger  of  the  Queen,  and  adds  to  the  alarm  al- 
ready awakened  in  her  mind  by  the  theatres  and  the  play. 
Hayward  is  sent  straight  to  the  Tower.  Essex  makes  all 
haste  to  call  in  the  book,  and  to  suppress  the  dedication ; 
but  the  forbidden  thing  was  much  sought  after.  Not  long 
after  this,  and  while  Essex  is  under  arrest,  and  Bacon,  in 
sundry  interviews  with  the  Queen,  is  still  interceding  in  his 
behalf,  her  Majesty  brings  up  against  him  this  affair  of  Dr. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  97 

Hayward's  book,  and  also,  as  it  would  seem,  distinctly  flings 
at  Bacon  himself  about  "  a  matter  which  grew  from  him, 
but  went  after  about  in  others'  names,"  being,  in  fact,  no 
other  than  the  play  itself;  but  this  will  be  made  the  subject 
of  special  notice  below. 

From  this  time  until  he  became  Attorney-General  in 
1613,  while  pursuing  his  public  labors,  he  is  still  continu- 
ing in  private,  like  Prospero  in  the  play,  his  secret  studies 
and  the  liberal  arts  in  his  "  poor  cell "  at  Gray's  Inn,  or  in 
his  lodge  at  Twickenham  Park,  or  at  the  charming  coun- 
try-seat of  Gorhambury,  which  fell  to  him  on  the  death  of 
his  brother  Anthony  in  1604,  where  his  taste  for  elegant 
studies,  his  delight  in  beautiful  gardens,  and  his  love  for 
the  Muses  find  ample  gratification.  Sometime  after  the 
death  of  the  Queen  in  1603,  he  takes  pains  to  record  her 
praises,  signalizing  her  happy  reign  in  the  "  In  Felicem 
Memoriam  Elizabethan  " ;  for  this  "  silver-tongued  Meli- 
cert "  will  surely  not  fail,  like  the  ungrateful  subject  of 
Chettle's  spleen,  to 

"  Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one  sable  teare, 
To  mourn  her  death  that  graced  his  desert, 
And  to  his  hues  open'd  her  royall  eare  " ; 

as  witness  also  the  numerous  sonnets  to  her  addressed,  the 
masques  written  for  her  entertainment,  the  graceful  com- 
pliment in  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  and  that 
handsome  tribute  to  her  memory  which  is  contained  in  the 
last  act  of  the  "  Henry  VIII." 

His  speeches  in  Parliament  have  an  eye  to  the  welfare 
of  the  kingdom,  and  he  is  popular  with  the  people,  being 
sometimes  elected  for  two  or  three  boroughs  at  once  ;  and, 
on  the  coming  in  of  the  new  sovereign,  he  is  for  the  first 
time  regularly  appointed  King's  Counsel,  is  knighted  by 
King  James  in  1604,  and,  in  1606,  in  the  forty-sixth  year  of 
his  age,  having  found  a  maiden  to  his  mind,  he  marries  the 
pretty  Miss  Barnham,  with  £220  a  year,  being  now  able  to 
settle  upon  her  £500  a  year  out  of  his  own  income,  though 
7 


98  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

he  has  lately  had  in  pawn  "  a  jewell  of  Susannah  set  with  dia- 
monds and  rubies."  In  1605—6,  certain  acts  of  Parliament 
are  passed  against  witches,  and  Ben  Jonson,  Chapman,  and 
Marston  are  sent  to  jail  by  the  sublime  author  of  the  trea- 
tise on  "  Daemonologie  and  Witchcraft,"  for  jesting  on  the 
Scots.  "William  Shakespeare  quits  acting  upon  the  stage, 
buys  a  lease  of  one  half  of  the  Tythes  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  and  is  planting  a  mulberry-tree  at  New  Place,  when 
he  should  be  writing  the  "  Macbeth  "  and  the  "  Lear."  The 
"  Macbeth,"  written  somewhere  in  these  years,  takes  a  more 
flattering  view  of  the  Scots  and  of  the  doctrine  of  witches, 
and  Shakespeare  has  the  good  fortune  to  escape  the  fate 
of  his  brother  poets  ;  and  the  Christmas  revels  of  the  year 
1606,  at  Whitehall,  bring  out  the  great  play  of  "  Lear,"  for 
his  Majesty's  special  entertainment.  Bacon  again  expects 
the  Solicitor's  place,  but  is  defeated  by  a  trick  of  Cecil  ele- 
vating Coke  and  Hobart ;  but,  at  last,  in  1607,  having 
made  his  great  speech  on  the  Union  of  Scotland,  much  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  King,  he  is  made  Solicitor-General, 
in  June,  with  "  the  promise  of  a  place  of  profit "  in  due 
time. 

Not  long  after  this  event,  the  wonderful  comedy  of 
"Troilus  and  Cressida,"  in  a  rather  surprising  manner, 
makes  its  escape  from  the  "  grand  possessors'  wills,"  as  we 
have  already  had  occasion  to  notice.  In  1607-8,  Bacon  is 
engaged  upon  his  "  Characters  of  Julius  and  Augustus 
Caesar" ;  and,  by  some  marvellous  accident,  the  tragedy  of 
"  Julius  Caesar  "  comes  from  the  hand  of  Shakespeare  very 
soon  after,  as  if  there  were  at  least  a  "  semblable  cohe- 
rence "  between  the  two  men's  spirits.  Writing  to  Mr. 
Tobie  Matthew,  about  this  time,  concerning  his  "  Happy 
Memory  of  the  late  Queen,"  Bacon  says :  "  I  showed  you 
some  model,  though  at  that  time  methought  you  were  as 
willing  to  hear  Julius  Caesar  as  Queen  Elizabeth  com- 
mended." 

In  1610,  Shakespeare  finally  retires  to  Stratford,  and 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  99 

takes  to  his  old  trade,  suing  John  Addenbrook  and  Thomas 
Horneby  for  24s.  On  the  20th  of  April  in  this  year,  the 
"  Macbeth  "  is  performed  at  the  Globe  for  the  first  time 
that  we  know.  The  Earls  of  Southampton,  Pembroke,  and 
Montgomery,  together  with  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  are  now  fel- 
low-members of  the  Virginia  Company,  which  sends  out 
Somers's  fleet  to  the  West  Indies,  to  be  terribly  vexed 
by  storms  on  the  voyage,  and  the  good  ship  Admiral  is 
wrecked  upon  the  Bermudas  ;  of  which  a  thrilling  account 
soon  after  appeared  in  Jourdan's  "  Discovery  of  the  Ber- 
mudas, otherwise  called  the  Isle  of  Divels  "  ;  and  it  is  just 
after,  in  1611,  that  we  first  hear  of  the  "  Tempest,"  the 
"  born  devil "  Caliban,  and  "  the  still-vex'd  Bermoothes," 
which,  we  are  to  believe,  have  occupied  the  leisure  of  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare  in  the  intervals  of  his  economical  avoca- 
tions and  his  social  converse  with  his  Stratford  neighbors. 
In  1612,  on  the  death  of  his  perfidious  friend  Cecil,  Earl 
of  Salisbury,  Bacon  is  named  by  the  liberal  party  for  Sec- 
retary of  State.  This  failing,  however,  he  desires  to  have 
the  Mastership  of  the  Wards  ;  but  Sir  Thomas  Cope  steps 
in,  and  buys  the  place  at  an  enormous  price.  It  is  in  this 
year,  too,  as  is  worthy  of  note,  that  Bartholomew  Legate  is 
burnt  for  Arian  heresy,  and  King  James  in  person  writes  a 
fulmination  against  the  heretic  Vorstius  away  over  in  Hol- 
land. With  Bacon,  business  is  now  becoming  more  labo- 
rious, but  the  "  Intellectual  Globe  "  is  written,  and  the  "  No- 
vum Organum  "  progresses :  u  My  great  work  goeth  for- 
ward." Toward  the  close  of  the  year,  the  long-protracted 
festivities  attending  the  nuptials  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth, 
shortly  to  become  Queen  of  Bohemia,  began  with  the  per- 
formance at  Court  of  the  "  Winter's  Tale  "  and  the  "  Tem- 
pest," and  ended  only  with  the  magnificent  tragedy  of 
"  Henry  VIII.,"  in  June  1613;  and  in  October  following, 
Sir  Edward  Coke  is  raised  to  the  King's  Bench,  very  little 
to  his  own  satisfaction,  and  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  having  some- 
time before  received  the  "  royal  promise  to  succeed,"  be- 


100  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

,  comes  Attorney- General,  at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  and  the 

]  plays  certainly  cease  to  appear :  — 

"All  your  doing,  Mr.  Attorney,"  says  Coke.  Bacon  : 
"  Your  Lordship  all  this  while  has  grown  in  breadth  ;  you 
must  needs  now  grow  in  height,  or  you  will  be  a  monster." 

In  these  years  also,  the  "Apology  concerning  Essex " 
(1604),  the  speeches  touching  Purveyors  and  on  the  King's 
Messages,  the  "Advancement  of  Learning"  (1605),  the 
"Office  of  Constables"  (1608),  and  the  "  Wisdom  of  the 
Ancients"  (1609-10),  were  written,  or  finished,  and  some 
new  editions  of  the  Essays  published ;  and  during  the  same 
period  were  written  the  greater  plays  of  this  author  (these 
recreations  of  his  other  studies,  perhaps)  :  the  "As  You 
Like  it,"  the  "  Twelfth  Night,"  the  "  Hamlet,"  the  "  Meas- 
ure for  Measure,"  the  "  Lear,"  the  "  Julius  Caesar,"  the 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  the  "  Macbeth,"  the  "  Othello,"  the 
"Cymbeline,"  the  "Tempest,"  the  "Winter's  Tale,"  the 
"  Henry  VIII.,"  and  lastly  (if  they  were  in  fact  finished 
before  Bacon's  fall  from  power),  the  "  Coriolanus,"  the 
"Anthony  and  Cleopatra,"  and  the  "  Timon  of  Athens." 

It  may  be  briefly  added  further,  that,  between  1613  and 
1621,  Bacon  was  occupied  with  his  graver  philosophical 
labors  and  his  public  employments,  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  the  royal  favor,  political  power,  and  great  fame.  In 
1616  the  year  of  Shakespeare's  death,  the  grand  trial  of 
the  Judges  on  the  question  of  the  King's  prerogative  came 
up  before  the  King  in  person.  The  Lord  Chancellor  (El- 
lesmere)  and  the  King  decide  for  Bacon's  opinion  against 
that  of  the  Judges,  who,  all  but  Coke,  finally  yielded  the 
point.  Coke,  overruled,  has  to  eat  his  words,  being  for 
once  "  clearly  in  the  wrong,"  says  Blackstone,1  and  is  sub- 
sequently deposed  from  the  King's  Bench.  In  reply  to  his 
many  assaults,  Bacon  addresses  him  a  letter  expostulatory  : 
"  Like  a  true  friend,  though  far  unworthy  to  be  counted  so, 
to  shew  you  your  true  shape  in  a  glass,  and  that  not  in  a 
i  3  Black.  Co"\m.,  54. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  101 

false  one  to  flatter  you,  nor  yet  in  one  that  should  make 
you  seem  worse  than  you  are." 

On  taking  his  seat  in  Chancery  (March  7,  1617),  he 
delivers  an  admirable  speech  on  the  duties  of  the  Chancel- 
lor, and  there  is  immense  parade  on  the  occasion,  of  which 
he  says  afterwards,  in  a  private  letter,  "  There  was  much 
ado  and  a  great  deal  of  world,  .  .  .  hell  to  me,  or  purga- 
tory at  least."  Not  long  after,  however,  the  indefatigable 
Coke,  grim  and  fierce,  but  wise  as  a  serpent,  conceives  the 
scheme  of  buying  up  the  whole  Villiers  family  by  sacrificing 
his  own  daughter  on  the  altar  of  court-favor  and  ambitious 
intrigue  ;  a  scheme  also  by  Lord  Campbell  (and  all  disci- 
ples of  the  Cokean  doctrine  of  the  industrious  money-get- 
ting chief  end  of  man)  deemed  to  be  "  a  masterly  stroke 
of  policy," '  and  one  that  would,  as  it  were,  hoist  Bacon 
with  his  own  petard ;  but  the  Lady  Coke,  for  whom  Bacon 
feels  some  sympathy,  runs  away  with  the  girl  into  the  coun- 
try, and  keeps  her  shut  up  in  a  castle.  Coke  applies  to  the 
Lord  Keeper  (Bacon)  for  a  warrant  to  seize  her,  which 
Bacon  properly  enough  refuses,  and  advises  the  King 
against  the  marriage,  until,  much  to  his  amazement,  he 
finds  that  both  the  King  and  Buckingham  (or  Bucking- 
ham, and  of  course  the  King)  are  deep  in  the  plot.  He  is 
even  "  suffered  to  remain  in  an  antechamber  among  lac- 
queys, seated  on  an  old  wooden  box,"  holding  the  purse  of 
the  Great  Seal  in  his  hand,  and  is  threatened  with  imme- 
diate downfall,  until  he  will  submit  to  the  whims  of  the 
prime-favorite,  and  hold  his  peace  about  this  iniquitous 
marriage,  barely  escaping  with  his  office,  while  Coke  be- 
comes a  Privy  Councillor.  This  thing  over  for  the  present, 
he  is  made  Lord  Chancellor  and  Baron  Verulam  in  1618, 
publishes  the  "  Novum  Organum  "  in  1 620,  dedicated  to  the 
King,  and  becomes  Viscount  St  Alban,  January  27,  1621. 
Parliament  met  a  few  days  afterwards  all  furious  for  re- 
form.    Bacon  himself  had  advised  the  calling  of  a  parlia- 

1  Lord  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chan.,  II.  312. 


102  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

ment  as  a  remedy  for  the  public  evils ;  and  Coke,  turned 
"  flaming  patriot,"  is  a  member,  and  immediately  begins  on 
"  bribery  and  corruption  "  in  high  places,  hitting  at  Bacon 
first  of  all ;  and  Buckingham,  adventurer  Cranfield,  scent- 
hound  Churchill,  Dean  Williams,  high  priest  of  the  sum- 
mum  bonum,  and  all  the  Villiers  harpies,  the  mother  of 
them  inclusive,  who  already  imagines  she  has  the  aforesaid 
Dean  by  the  coat-tail,  join  the  cry,  and  fall  to  work.  Ba- 
con, warned  to  look  about  him,  answers :  "  I  look  above." 
But  seeing  that  there  was  no  help  for  it  now,  he  concluded 
to  lean  upon  the  King,  and  depend  upon  his  personal 
friendship  and  sovereign  power  alone  to  save  him  from 
total  ruin,  or  worse ;  and  so  gave  up  the  seals,  and  made  a 
clear  submission  and  a  formal  confession.  In  May  follow- 
ing, he  received  sentence,  was  fined  £40,000,  disqualified 
from  holding  office,  sent  to  the  Tower  during  the  King's 
pleasure  (which  was  not  long),  and  banished  London 
(the  verge  of  the  Court).  He  retires  to  his  books  and 
gardens  at  Gorhambury,  and,  by  the  next  October,  the 
"  History  of  Henry  VII.,"  begun  long  before,  is  finished, 
and  submitted  to  "  the  file  of  his  Majesty's  judgment."  x 
In  April  1622,  a  copy  of  the  "  History  of  Henry  VII."  is 
presented  to  the  Queen  of  Bohemia,  the  fair  Princess  for 
whose  nuptials  the  "  Winter's  Tale  "  had  been  written  ;  and 
the  "  History  of  Henry  VIII.,"  beginning  "  like  a  fable  of 
the  poets,"  is  commenced  but  never  finished.  In  the  mean 
time,  Buckingham  and  Cranfield  (now  Lord  Treasurer)  are 
pressing  for  the  spoils  of  their  late  victory,  until  by  Novem- 
ber, the  faithful  Secretary  Meautys  begins  to  think  they 
"  have  such  a  savage  word  among  them  as  fleecing." 2 
Buckingham  is  set  upon  having  York  House.  At  first, 
Bacon  replies:  "York  House  is  the  house  wherein  my 
father  died,  and  wherein  I  first  breathed ;  and  there  will 
I  yield  my  last  breath,  if  so  please  God,  and  the  King  will 

1  Letter  to  the  King,  March  22,  1622. 

2  Letter,  Works  (Mont),  XII.  430;  (Philad.),III.  146. 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  103 

give  me  leave ;  though  I  be  now  by  fortune  (as  the  old  prov- 
erb is)  like  a  bear  in  a  monk's  hood." 1  But,  seeing  that  the 
King  would  not  give  him  leave  against  the  favorite,  York 
House  had  to  go,  in  the  end,  and  Bacon  is  left  in  debt,  strug- 
gling with  penury,  until  at  length  his  fine  is  made  over  to 
him ;  but  he  insists  upon  driving  a  showy  equipage  when  he 
goes  abroad,  and,  says  Prince  Charles,  meeting  him  on  the 
road  in  full  trim,  "  will  not  go  out  in  a  snuff."  During  the 
autumn  of  1622,  his  letters  are  addressed  from  Bedford 
House  in  London.  Buckingham  is  still  grasping  after  his 
"  house  at  Gorhambury  "  and  his  "  forest "  there.  At  first, 
he  had  answered,  "  I  will  not  be  stripped  of  my  feathers  " ; 
but,  by  the  5th  of  February,  1623,  he  has  made  up  his  mind 
to  submit  to  the  necessities  of  his  fate,  and  writes  to  Buck- 
ingham of  that  date :  "And  for  my  house  at  Gorhambury, 
I  do  infinitely  desire  your  lordship  should  have  it." 2  And 
having  made  this  last  sacrifice,  about  the  first  of  March, 
1623,  he  returns  to  his  old  lodgings  in  Gray's  Inn,  where 
he  continues  to  be  "  shut  up,"  says  Lord  Campbell,  "  like  a 
cloistered  friar."  In  October  of  the  same  year,  the  "  De 
Augmentis  "  is  published  with  a  dedication  to  Buckingham, 
as  if  that  might  still  further  appease  him ;  and  he  ventures 
to  solicit  the  Provostship  of  Eton,  "  a  pretty  cell  for  my  for- 
tune "  (as  he  expresses  it),  and  is  refused ;  "  for,"  he  con- 
tinues, "  I  hope  I  shall  be  found  a  man  humbled  as  a 
Christian,  but  not  dejected  as  a  worldling."  8  The  "  His- 
tory of  Life  and  Death,"  written  in  Latin,  is  now  pub- 
lished ;  and  it  is  sometime  during  this  same  year  that  the 
Folio  edition  of  the  Plays  first  sees  the  light  The  entry 
on  the  Stationers'  Register  bears  date  the  8th  November, 
1623;  but  one  copy  is  said  to  exist,  having  the  date  1622 
upon  the  title-page ;  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that  the 

i  Letter,  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  420,  436. 
a  Letter,  Works  (Philad.),  HI- 147. 

«  Letter  to  Oxford  (Feb.  2, 1623-4);  Works  (Mont),  XII.  456;  (Philad.), 
III.  154. 


104  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

work  had  been  begun,  if  not  entirely  completed,  in  that 
year. 

Somewhere  between  1623  and  1626,  his  sentence  is  fully 
pardoned ;  and  Coke,  Cranfield,  Williams,  and  others,  disci- 
ples of  the  Cokean  doctrine  of  the  chief  end  of  man,  who 
had  been  instrumental  in  pulling  Bacon  down,  now  fall 
themselves,  some  with  Coke  himself  into  the  Tower,  and 
some  into  the  lowest  deeps.  Bacon  continues  his  labors  at 
Gray's  Inn  (when  not  too  sick  to  work)  upon  the  "  Great 
Instauration,"  the  "  Apothegms,"  the  "  Holy  "War,"  the 
"Natural  History,"  the  "New  Atlantis,"  the  Essays,  and 
the  Psalms,  with  the  assistance,  at  times,  of  Meautys,  Mat- 
thew, Rawley,  Hobbes,  Ben  Jonson,  and  George  Herbert ; 
for  poets  and  philosophers  and  divines  alike  appear  to  have 
had  a  singular  admiration  and  affection  for  this  "  Chancel- 
lor of  Parnassus,"  of  whom  Ben  Jonson  never  repented  of 
having  written  these  lines,  nor  ever  recanted  a  word  or  syl- 
lable of  them,  characterizing  him  as  — 

"  England's  high  Chancellor,  the  destined  heir, 
In  his  soft  cradle,  to  his  father's  chair, 
Whose  even  thread  the  Fates  spin  round  and  full 
Out  of  their  choicest  and  their  whitest  wool." 

A  new  edition  of  the  Essays,  with  twenty  new  ones 
added,  and  among  them  (as  it  may  be  well  to  note)  the 
Essay  of  the  "  Vicissitude  of  Things,"  is  printed  in  1625  ; 
the  "  Metrical  Versions  of  the  Psalms  of  David  "  are  dedi- 
cated to  George  Herbert,  "  as  the  best  judge  of  Divinity 
and  Poesy  met;"  and  he  dies  on  the  9th  of  April,  1626, 
saying  in  his  will :  "  For  my  name  and  memory  I  leave  it 
to  men's  charitable  speeches,  and  to  foreign  nations,  and 
the  next  ages." 

There  was  less  occasion,  perhaps,  than  has  been  gener- 
ally supposed,  that  he  should  leave  it  by  his  will  either  to 
the  one  or  to  the  other ;  for  his  own  contemporaries  were 
not  wholly  blind  to  his  superiority,  whether  in  the  powers 
of  the  intellect  or  of  the  imagination,  in  the  extent  of  his 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  105 

learning  or  in  the  nobility  of  his  nature  and  character,  in 
the  splendor  of  his  genius  or  in  the  greatness  of  his  works. 
Though  no  account  remains  to  tell  us  what  unusual  state 
attended  his  funeral,  we  know  that  his  faithful  secretary, 
Thomas  Meautys,  who  erected  a  fitting  monument  over 
him  in  St  Michael's  Church,  near  St.  Albans,  where  he  was 
buried  by  the  side  of  his  mother  (as  he  had  himself  de- 
sired) "  within  the  walls  of  Old  Verulam,"  whereon  he 
inscribed  him  the  Light  of  Science  and  the  Law  of  Elo- 
quence, whom  he  had  worshipped  living,  and  admired  when 
dead,  was  by  no  means  the  only  one  to  cast  a  flower  upon 
his  grave.  Numerous  tributes  to  his  memory  immediately 
appeared.  Some  of  them  have  been  preserved  in  the  Har- 
leian  Miscellanies,  elegantly  written  in  Latin,  and  though 
for  the  most  part  anonymous,  evidently  by  men  of  learning 
and  genius,  who  knew  how  to  appreciate  his  worth  even  as 
a  son  of  Apollo,  as  witness  these  few  lines  of  extract :  — 

"  Constat,  Aprile  uno  te  potuisse  mori : 
Ut  flos  hinc  lacrymis,  illinc  Philomela  querelis 
Deducant  linguae  funera  sola  tuae. 

GEORGIU8  HeRBEET." 


"  Crudelis  nunquam  veVe  prius  Atropos :  orbem 
Totum  habeas,  Phoebum  t.u  modo  redde  meum. 

Hei  mihi !  nee  cesium,  nee  mors,  nee  musa  (Bacone) 
Obstabant  fatis,  nee  mea  vota  tuis." 


"  Ah  nunquam  ve"re  infoelix  prius  ipsus  Apollo ! 
Unde  illi  qui  sic  ilium  amet  alter  erit? 

Ah  numerum  non  est  habitum ;  jamque  necesse  est, 
Contentus  musis  ut  sit  Apollo  novem." 

Marmore  Pieridum  gelido  Phoebique  choragum 
Inhumane-  patis,  stultae  viator?  abi:  • 

Fallere:  jam  rutilo  Verulamia  fulget  Olympo: 
Sidere  splendet  aper  magne  Jacobi  tuo.1 

l  Harl  Misc.,  X.  288-295. 


106  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

We  know  when  Bacon's  acknowledged  works  were  pub- 
lished, and  also  in  what  years  many  of  them  were  chiefly 
written  ;  but  some  of  them  occupied  his  mind  more  or  less 
during  many  years  or  nearly  all  his  life,  and  materials  were 
always  accumulating  on  his  hands  ;  and  some  of  them  were 
composed  in  whole  or  in  part  long  before  they  were  printed. 
But  most  of  these  plays  were  no  doubt  produced  on  the 
stage  very  soon  after  they  were  written ;  and,  although  it 
may  not  be  possible  to  fix  with  precision  the  exact  dates  at 
which  they  were  composed,  in  all  cases,  the  facts  known 
concerning  them  enable  us  to  assign  a  hither  limit  to  their 
appearance  with  positive  certainty  in  nearly  every  instance  ; 
and  this  will  be  sufficient  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  The 
researches  of  later  critics  have  considerably  modified  the 
chronological  order  of  Malone  and  older  writers,  and  they 
furnish  data  on  which  a  near  approximation  to  the  date  of 
composition,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  can  be  attained. 
On  these  and  such  other  lights  as  we  have,  the  following 
order,  with  the  nearest  dates,  may  be  accepted,  perhaps, 
as  a  very  close  approach  to  the  truth. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  ORDER  OF  THE  PLAYS. 
I.  Period.  — 1582-1593. 


Titus  Andronicus. 

Pericles  (first  sketch). 

Henry  VI.,  3  Parts  (first  sketches). 

Taming  of  the  Shrew  (first  sketch). 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. 


Love's  Labor 's  Lost. 
All 's  Well  That  Ends  Well. 
(Venus  and  Adonis.    Printed  1593.) 
(Rape  of  Lucrece.    Printed  1594.) 


II.  Period.  —1594-1600. 


Written 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  .1594 

Comedy  of  Errors 1594 

Romeo  and  Juliet 1595 

King  John 1595 

Richard  II 1596 

Richard  III 1596-7 

Merchant  of  Venice 1597 


Written 

lHenrylV 1598 

2HenryIV 1598 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing. .  .1599 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. . .  .1599 

Henry  V 1599 

As  You  Like  It 1600 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 


107 


III.  Period.  — 1601-1613. 


Written 

Twelfth  Night 1601 

Hamlet 1602 

Measure  for  Measure 1603-4 

Lear 1606 

Julius  Caesar 1607 

Troilus  and  Cressida 1608 

Antony  and  Cleopatra 1608 

Macbeth 1605-1609 


Written 

Coriolanus 1610 

Cymbeline 1610 

Winter's  Tale 1611 

Tempest 1611 

Othello 1611-1613 

Henry  VIII 1612-13 

Timon  of  Athens 1610-1623 


PLAYS  PRINTED  BEFORE  THE  FOLIO  OF  1623. 


Printed 

Romeo  and  Juliet 1597 

Richard  II 1597 

Richard  III 1597 

Love's  Labor 's  Lost 1598 

1  Henry  IV 1598 

Titus  Andronicus 1600 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  .1600 
Merchant  of  Venice 1600 


Printed 

2  Henry  rv 1600 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing. .  .1600 

Henry  V 1600 

Hamlet 1603-4 

Lear 1608 

Pericles  (not  in  the  Folio)  . .  .1609 

Troilus  and  Cressida 1609 

Othello 1622 


PLAYS  FIRST  PRINTED  IN  THE  FOLIO  OF  1623. 
Eakliek  Works. 


Taming  of  the  Shrew.1 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. 

1  Henry  VI. 

2  and  3  Henry  Vl.a 


All 's  Well  That  Ends  Well. 

Comedy  of  Errors. 

King  John. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.8 


As  You  Like  It. 
Twelfth  Night. 
Measure  for  Measure. 
Julius  Caesar. 
Antony  and  Cleopatra. 
Macbeth. 


Later  Works. 

Coriolanus. 
Cymbeline. 
Winter's  Tale. 
Tempest. 
Henry  Vin. 
Timon  of  Athens. 


Thus  it  appears  that  the  period  of  time  in  which  these 
plays  and  poems  were  produced  corresponds  exactly  to  that 
portion  of  Bacon's  life  in  which  we  may  most  easily  sup- 

1  First  printed  in  the  present  form :  an  older  form  printed  in  1594. 

2  First  in  complete  form:  only  first  sketches  before. 
8  First  in  complete  form :  only  a  sketch  before. 


108  CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. 

pose  they  could  have  been  written  by  him,  being  the  period 
of  thirty-one  years  between  his  coming  to  the  bar,  in  1582, 
and  his  elevation  to  the  principal  law-office  of  the  crown,  in 
1613,  and  between  the  ages  of  twenty-one  and  fifty-two. 
During  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  this  time,  and  until 
made  Solicitor-General,  in  1607,  he  was  looking  in  vain  for 
advancement  in  the  state,  getting  none  beyond  a  seat  in 
Parliament,  which  came  from  the  people,  and  the  small 
employment  of  a  Queen's  (or  King's)  Counsel,  both  places 
of  honor  rather  than  profit ;  and  was  a  barrister,  a  close 
student,  and  a  bachelor  at  his  lodgings  in  Gray's  Inn,  with 
distressingly  little  professional  business  and  much  leisure 
for  writing  and  for  study,  spending  his  vacations  in  the 
quiet  retreats  of  Gorhambury  and  Twickenham  Park  ;  a 
constant  attendant  upon  the  Court,  a  friend  and  counsellor 
of  the  favorite  Essex,  and  an  intimate  associate  of  his  gay 
young  compeers,  Southampton,  Rutland,  Pembroke,  and 
Montgomery,  who  were  constant  visitors  of  the  theatre, 
some  of  them  great  patrons  of  learning,  and  themselves 
amateurs  in  poetry,  and  all  of  them  patrons  and  lovers  of 
the  liberal  arts. 

All  the  while,  Francis  Bacon  was  intent  upon  his  legal 
studies,  his  parliamentary  duties,  his  scientific  inquiries,  his 
civil  and  moral  Essays,  his  "  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,"  his 
"Advancement  of  Learning,"  and  those  philosophical  spec- 
ulations and  instaurations  which  were  his  "  graver  studies," 
together  with  sundry  unnamed  "  recreations  "  of  his  other 
studies ;  being  thus,  at  the  same  time,  engaged  in  writing 
various  works  in  prose  (if  not  in  verse  also)  on  subjects 
which,  in  a  general  view,  and  in  their  main  matter  and 
scope,  are  found  to  be  essentially  kindred  and  parallel  with 
these  very  plays.  In  his  dedication  of  the  "  Dialogue  Touch- 
ing a  Holy  War"  (itself  not  without  some  touch  of  the 
Shakespearean  faculty),  addressed  to  the  learned  Bishop 
Andrews,  in  1622,  he  tells  us  that  these  smaller  works,  such 
as  the  Essays,  and  "  some  other  particulars  of  that  nature," 


CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS.  109 

being  perhaps  a  part  of  those  "  particular  exchanges "  to 
which  he  had  hitherto  been  given,  had  been  and  would  con- 
tinue to  be  "  the  recreations  of  his  other  studies ;  "  but  they 
must  now  give  way  to  the  more  important  philosophical 
labors  and  those  "  banks  and  mounts  of  perpetuity  which 
will  not  break  " ;  for  on  these  he  was  henceforth  to  be  more 
exclusively  employed ;  "  though  I  am  not  ignorant,"  says 
he,  "  that  those  kind  of  writings  woidd  with  less  pains  and 
embracement  (perhaps)  yield  more  lustre  and  reputation 
to  my  name  than  those  other  which  I  have  in  hand." l 

Nor  is  there  anything  remarkable  in  the  circumstance 
that  a  barrister  of  the  Inns  of  Court  should  be  a  poet  and 
write  for  the  stage.  John  Ford  of  Gray's  Inn,  and  Fran- 
cis Beaumont  of  the  Inner  Temple,  were  both  lawyers  and 
eminent  dramatic  writers ;  the  Christmas  Revels  at  these 
Inns  were  celebrated  with  masques,  triumphs,  and  stage- 
plays  ;  plays  were  written  by  eminent  scholars  and  divines 
to  be  performed  on  festive  occasions,  even  at  the  Universi- 
ties ;  Thomas  Sackville  Lord  Buckhurst,  and  Foulke  Grev- 
ille  Lord  Brooke,  were  poets,  and  wrote  plays ;  Sir  Henry 
Wotton,  sometime  secretary  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  also 
wrote  plays  ;  William,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  like  the  cele- 
brated Sir  Philip  Sidney,  was  a  cultivator  of  the  art  of  poe- 
try ;  Dr.  John  Donne,  a  great  philosopher  and  divine,  as 
well  as  George  Herbert,  the  a  best  judge  of  divinity  and 
poesy  met,"  and  Sir  John  Davies,  a  distinguished  lawyer 
and  judge,  are  named  as  founders  of  the  metaphysical 
school  of  poetry  of  that  day ; 2  and  that  great  scholar  and 
writer,  John  Selden  of  the  Inner  Temple,  though  not  him- 
self a  poet,  was  such  a  critic,  philosopher,  and  man,  as  to 
command  the  esteem  and  confidence  of  Lord  Bacon,  who 
named  him  in  his  will  as  one  eminently  fit  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment upon  his  unpublished  manuscripts.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  he  contemplated  in  the  writing  of  these  poet- 

1  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  188. 

2  Craik's  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.  I.  578. 


110  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

ical  works  merely  "  some  lease  of  quick  revenue,"  or  any 
immediate  advantage  to  himself,  or  personal  fame,  as  many 
of  the  poets  did,  in  those  days.  On  the  contrary,  we  may 
safely  imagine  for  him  the  highest  and  most  disinterested 
purpose  which  it  is  possible  to  conceive  for  any  author,  even 
for  himself,  who  was  seeking  by  the  labors  of  a  life  to  re- 
form and  advance  the  learning,  science,  philosophy,  arts, 
morals,  and  the  whole  "  practic  part "  of  human  life  in  this 
world ;  hi  which  the  personal  interests  of  the  writer,  and 
even  the  lustre  of  fame  and  reputation,  were  with  himself, 
perhaps,  the  least  important  considerations,  when  these 
"  trifles  "  were  in  question. 

§    2.    CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Francis  Bacon  was  endowed  by  nature  with  the  richest 
gifts  and  most  extraordinary  powers.  His  mother  was  a 
learned  woman  in  those  days  when  learning  for  either  sex 
implied  a  knowledge  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics ;  and 
we  find  her  translating  works  of  deep  theology,  after  the 
example  of  Lady  Jane  Grey,  who,  according  to  Ascham, 
read  "  the  Phsedon  Platonis  in  Greeke "  with  as  much 
delight  as  if  it  had  been  "  one  of  the  tales  of  Boccase,"  or 
of  the  Queen  herself,  who  is  said  to  have  translated  Boe- 
thius  "  De  Consolatione  Philosophise  "  into  her  own  Eng- 
lish. This  Boethius,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  a  Chris- 
tian philosopher  and  poet  of  the  fifth  century,1  and  a  writer 
that  exhibited  the  highest  order  of  Platonic  genius  and 
intellect,  both  in  style  and  matter  surpassing  Cicero  him- 
self; and  in  the  age  of  Elizabeth  there  were  not  a  few 
scholars  and  divines,  who,  like  Richard  Hooker,  George 
Herbert,  John  Selden,  Dr.  Donne,  Bishop  Andrews,  and 
Lord  Bacon  himself,  were  by  no  means  afraid  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  Plato.  His  father  was  not  only  Lord  Keeper  of 
the  Great  Seal,  but  an  eminent  scholar  and  a  patron  of 
learning  and  art,  who  had  the  reputation  of  uniting  in  him- 
i  Opera  Boethii  (Class.  Delph.  Valpy),  London,  1823. 


CIRCUMSTANCES.  Ill 

self  "the  opposite  characters  of  a  witty  and  a  weighty- 
speaker,"  *  and  was,  says  Sir  Robert  Naunton,  "  an  arch- 
peece  of  wit  and  of  wisdome,"  and  "  abundantly  facetious ; 
which  tooke  much  with  the  queene."  2  His  palace  of  York 
House,  in  which  this  son  was  born,  and  his  country-seat  of 
Gorhambury,  was  well  furnished  with  libraries,  and  adorned 
with  works  of  art  and  whatever  might  please  the  taste  of 
the  scholar  and  gentleman.  His  father  breeds  him  as  the 
King  did  Leonatus  in  the  play,  — 

"  Puts  to  him  all  the  learnings  that  his  time 
Could  make  him  receiver  of;  which  he  took, 
As  we  do  air,  fast  as  't  was  minister'd;  and 
In  his  spring  became  a  harvest;  liv'd  in  Court 
(Which  rare  it  is  to  do)  most  prais'd,  most  lov'd; 
A  sample  to  the  youngest,  to  th'  more  mature, 
A  glass  that  feated  them ;  and  to  the  graver, 
A  child  that  guided  dotards."  —  Cymbeline,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"We  can  easily  imagine  what  must  have  been  the  early 
education  of  this  notable  youth,  whom  the  Queen  called  her 
young  Lord  Keeper  at  ten,  and  whose  "  first  and  childish 
years,"  says  Dr.  Rawley,  "  were  not  without  some  mark  of 
eminency :  at  which  time,  he  was  endued  with  that  preg- 
nancy and  towardness  of  wit,  as  they  were  passages  of  that 
deep  and  universal  apprehension  which  was  manifest  in  him 
afterwards."  We  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  him  enter- 
ing the  University  of  Cambridge,  at  a  little  more  than 
twelve,  discovering  the  deficiencies  of  Aristotle  and  out- 
stripping his  tutors  before  he  was  sixteen,  going  as  an 
attache  to  the  Court  of  Paris,  learning  French,  Italian,  and 
Spanish,  travelling  with  the  French  Court,  and  being 
intrusted  with  a  mission  to  the  Queen,  before  he  was  nine- 
teen ;  an  utter  barrister  at  twenty-one,  a  member  of  Par- 
liament at  twenty-four,  a  Bencher  at  twenty-five,  and  doubt- 
less a  maturer  man  at  twenty,  in  all  learning  and  wisdom, 
than  most  graduates  of  the  universities  were  at  full  thirty 

1  Biogr.  Britannica,  I.  446. 

2  Memoirs  of  Eliz.,  75,  London,  1824. 


112  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Upon  the  death  of  his  father,  sitting  down  thus  furnished, 
at  Gray's  Inn,  in  1579,  to  the  study  of  the  law,  a  further 
survey  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  and  a  thorough  study 
of  the  philosophic  wisdom  and  culture  of  the  ancients, 
reviewing  the  patent  deficiencies  of  his  own  age  in  matters 
civil,  moral,  and  religious,  in  sciences,  philosophy,  and  art, 
with  the  recollection  about  him,  perhaps,  of  the  plays  that 
had  been  written  and  performed  within  the  walls  of  the 
University  while  he  was  there,  and  with  such  example  be- 
fore him  as  that  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  such  encourage- 
ment for  the  cultivation  of  the  art  of  poetry  as  was  to  be 
found  in  his  writings  as  being  not  unworthy  of  the  highest 
dignity,  rank,  ambition,  or  genius  of  any  man,  and  with  that 
boldness  of  self-conscious  power  that  did  not  fear  to  grap- 
ple with  Aristotle  and  Plato,  nor  even  to  undertake  the 
renovation  of  all  philosophy,  it  is  not  so  very  wonderful 
that  he  should  also  come  to  the  conclusion  that  "  true  art  is 
always  capable  of  advancing," 1  and  should  even  begin  to 
spread  his  own  wings  in  the  sphere  of  Apollo.  The  "  Ve- 
nus and  Adonis  "  at  once  gets  to  the  very  essence  and  bot- 
tom of  the  pastoral  Arcadia,  and  the  "  Rape  of  Lucrece  " 
measures  the  height  of  the  Roman  virtue  and  dignity. 
Ancient  lore  furnishes  material  and  story  for  a  "  Titus  An- 
dronicus,"  or  a  "  Pericles,"  in  near  imitation  of  the  manner 
of  the  Greek  tragedy,  which  he  may  send  to  the  theatre, 
perhaps.  The  "  Histoires  Tragiques "  of  Belleforest,  and 
the  Italian  novels  of  Cinthio,  Bandello,  Baccaccio,  and  the 
rest,  which  he  has  read  in  Paris,  furnish  hints  of  fable  and 
incident  for  a  few  delightful  and  entertaining  comedies  of 
love,  wit,  and  humor,  which  yet  savor  of  the  classic  lore  of 
the  University,  and  bear  traces  of  his  Parisian  French  and 
his  accomplishments  in  Italian  and  Spanish.  The  splendid 
entertainments  at  Court  set  the  young  imagination  all  in  a 
blaze,  and  produce  that  extraordinary  exhibition  of  love, 
wit,  and  fancy,  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  in  honor 
i  Scala  InteUeclus,  Works  (Mont.),  XIV.  426-7. 


CIRCUMSTANCES.  113 

of  the  maiden  Queen.  The  Christmas  Revels  at  Gray's 
Inn  call  for  a  new  "  Comedy  of  Errors  "  out  of  Plautus, 
with  sundry  sharp  hits  at  the  gowned  and  wigged  gentry 
there  assembled,  which  may  go  to  the  theatre  also,  now  that 
its  special  work  is  done.  The  English  Histories  of  Holin- 
shed,  Hall,  Stow,  Speed,  and  the  rest,  all  compact  with 
learning,  imagination,  and  poetry,  of  which  he  has  made 
some  study,  as  well  as  Chaucer,  the  old  ballads,  and  all  the 
old  plays,  tales,  proverbs,  and  chronicles,  which  he  has 
found  time  to  ransack,  may  furnish  fable,  story,  moral  pre- 
cept, and  tragic  incident  enough  for  a  few  dramatic  histo- 
ries in  the  new  kind,  of  which  some  first  specimens  and 
youthful  sketches,  which  will  eventually  grow  into  larger 
dimensions  and  more  perfect  form,  may  be  thrown  upon  the 
stage  at  once,  until  they  begin  to  attract  the  public  atten- 
tion, and  find  their  way  into  the  hands  of  the  printers, 
without  the  author's  name,  as  they  were  lately  acted  by  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  or  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  servants. 
All  this  will  be  done  in  secret,  or  with  the  knowledge  of  a 
few  friends  only  who  can  keep  a  secret ;  for  he  well  knows 
that  the  public  opinion  is  much  against  poets  and  writers 
for  the  stage,  and  that  to  be  known  as  a  poet  and  a  play- 
wright would  be  next  to  ruin  to  all  his  prospects  for  ad- 
vancement in  the  state,  and  in  a  profession  in  which  the 
greatest  lights  were  of  opinion,  with  Lord  Coke,  that  poet- 
asters and  play-writers  were  to  be  ranked  with  "alche- 
mysts,  monopotexts,  concealers,  and  informers,"  whose 
"  fatal  end  was  beggary,"  being  no  better  than  "  fit  sub- 
jects for  the  grand  jury  as  vagrants."  He  had  not  made 
up  his  mind  yet  to  become  "  a  sorry  book-maker,"  nor  quite 
to  retire  to  Cambridge  with  a  couple  of  men,  there  to  de- 
vote his  life  to  contemplations  and  studies, "  without  looking 
back."  In  the  mean  time,  he  is  pushing  his  interest  at 
Court,  with  the  tardy  support  of  his  uncle,  Lord  Burghley, 
and  the  jealousy  of  the  Cecils ;  for  he  has  chosen  to  follow  a 
public,  rather  than  a  merely  professional  or  literary  career. 


114  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Giving  an  account  of  himself,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life, 
more  particularly  in  reference  to  his  philosophical  labors, 
perhaps,  but  not  wholly  out  of  place  in  this  connection,  he 
says :  — 

"  When  I  came  to  conceive  of  myself  as  born  for  the 
service  of  humanity,  and  to  look  upon  state  employment  as 
amongst  those  things  which  are  of  public  right  and  patent 
to  all,  like  the  wave  or  the  breeze,  I  proceeded  both  to 
inquire  what  might  most  conduce  to  the  benefit  of  men, 
and  to  deliberate  for  what  special  work  I  myself  had  been 
best  fitted  by  nature.  Thereupon  I  found  that  no  other  thing 
was  of  so  great  merit  in  reference  to  the  human  race  as  the 
discovery  and  authorship  of  new  truths  and  arts,  by  which 

human  life  may  be  improved I  judged,  therefore, 

that  my  nature  had  a  certain  inherent  intimacy  and  rela- 
tionship with  truth.  Yet,  seeing  that  both  by  descent  and 
education  I  had  been  imbued  in  civil  affairs,  and,  inasmuch 
as  I  was  still  a  young  man,  was  sometimes  shaken  in  my 
opinions,  and  thinking  that  I  owed  something  peculiar  to 
my  country  which  was  not  equally  due  in  all  other  cases,  and 
hoping  that,  if  I  might  obtain  some  honorable  rank  in  the 
state,  I  should  accomplish  what  I  had  designed  with  greater 
advantages  in  the  exercise  of  my  genius  and  my  industry.  I 
both  applied  myself  to  the  acquirement  of  political  knowl- 
edge, and,  with  such  modesty  as  beseemed  and  in  as  far  as 
it  could  be  done  without  any  disingenuousness,  endeav- 
oured to  commend  myself  to  such  friends  as  had  it  in  their 
power  to  assist  my  advancement." 1 

His  compact  learning,  exact  knowledge,  and  brilliant  ora- 
torical powers  soon  begin  to  acquire  for  him  an  ascendency 
in  Parliament  and  public  affairs.  He  connects  himself 
with  the  fortunes  and  party  of  the  rising  favorite,  Essex, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  makes  the  acquaintance  of  the  young 
lords  and  courtiers,  his  adherents  and  followers,  Southamp- 
ton among  them,  constant  attendants  and  patrons  of  the 
i  Proemium  de  Int.  Nat.,  (Craik's  Bacon,  611). 


CIRCUMSTANCES.  115 

theatre ;  who,  as  the  friends  and  associates  of  Essex  and 
himself,  were  no  doubt  frequent  visitors  at  his  chambers  in 
Gray's  Inn,  or  at  his  lodge  at  Twickenham.  His  brother 
Anthony  and  himself,  the  more  effectually  to  push  their 
fortunes  in  this  direction,  and  to  maintain  this  high  estate 
and  prospect  of  advancement,  incur  expense  beyond  their 
immediate  means  of  living,  and  even  keep  a  coach,  which 
the  good  Lady  Ann  thinks  a  piece  of  extravagance ;  and 
they  give  entertainments  of  stage-plays  at  Anthony's  house 
to  "  cits  and  gentlemen,  very  much  to  the  delight  of  Essex 
and  his  jovial  crew,"  but,  as  Lady  Ann  thinks,  also  very 
much  "  to  the  peril  of  her  sons'  souls." *  In  the  summer 
of  1593,  Anthony  has  become  secretary,  and  Francis,  the 
legal  and  political  adviser  of  the  Earl  of  Essex ;  and  it  is 
at  this  very  time  that  the  "  Venus  and  Adonis  "  is  dedi- 
cated to  Southampton,  and,  in  the  next  year,  the  "  Rape  of 
Lucrece,"  also,  under  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare. 
The  plays  have  been  performed  at  his  theatre,  and  he  has 
already  acquired  the  reputation  of  being  the  author  of 
them ;  though  as  yet  none  of  them  have  been  printed 
under  his  name.  Certainly  it  will  require  no  great  stretch 
of  imagination  to  conceive  that  during  these  familiar  visits 
of  Essex  and  Southampton  to  his  chambers  in  Gray's  Inn, 
he  may  have  taken  the  liberty  to  show  them,  or  to  read  to 
them,  the  manuscripts  of  these  poems.  We  may  very  well 
suppose  they  would  urge  him  to  publish  them.  But  he 
does  not  desire  to  appear  before  the  public  in  this  charac- 
ter, and  means  to  "  profess  not  to  be  a  poet."  2  This  cover 
is  easily  suggested.  Southampton  will  not  object  to  the  use 
of  his  name  in  a  dedication ;  and  William  Shakespeare 
will  be  as  ready  to  appear  as  the  author  of  these  poems  as 
he  has  been,  or  will  be,  to  figure  as  author  on  the  title- 
pages  of  divers  and  sundry  quarto  plays  which  he  certainly 
never  wrote.    A  mere  possibility,  it  is  true,  or  even  a  strong 

1  Dixon's  Pers.  Hist.,  68. 

2  Apology  concerning  Essex. 


116  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

probability,  cannot  be  taken  as  any  proof  of  the  fact ;  but 
if  it  be  once  established  by  other  evidence  that  the  plays 
and  poems  were  actually  written  by  Francis  Bacon,  then, 
of  course,  some  such  supposition  as  this  must  be  admitted 
as  absolutely  necessary ;  and  of  this  fact  there  will  be  an 
ample  sufficiency  of  other  evidence.  So  extraordinary  an 
arrangement,  with  so  eminent  a  personage  as  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  is  indeed  a  bold  hypothesis ;  especially  in  the 
face  of  that  munificent  largess  of  £1000,  which  he  is  said 
to  have  bestowed  on  Shakespeare,  in  recognition  of  the 
compliment  and  of  his  merit  as  a  poet.  But  this  story  is 
itself  a  mere  tradition,  related  with  distrust  by  Rowe  as 
handed  down  by  Sir  William  Davenant ;  and,  as  Mr.  Hal- 
liwell  observes,  "  considering  the  value  of  money  in  those 
days,  such  a  gift  is  altogether  incredible,"  *  however  prob- 
able it  may  be,  otherwise,  that  some  notice  of  the  kind  may 
have  been  taken  of  him.  The  Globe  Theatre  was  erected 
somewhere  in  these  years  (1594-5),  and  it  is  by  no  means 
improbable  that  the  Earl  of  Southampton  should  contribute 
a  handsome  sum  towards  this  enterprise.  And  there  may 
have  been  other  reasons,  more  or  less  remotely  connected 
with  the  history  of  these  plays  and  their  author,  that  were 
operative  with  these  gay  young  courtiers  in  their  patronage 
of  the  theatre,  without  the  necessity  of  resorting  (with 
Delia  Bacon  2)  to  the  hypothesis  that  they  had,  as  a  whole, 
or  in  any  particular,  a  special  bearing  upon  any  schemes 
then  impending  for  effecting  changes  in  the  state  and  gov- 
ernment, or  any  connection  with  any  club  of  reformers ; 
especially  if  we  consider  that  the  Queen  herself  was  willing 
to  be  wooed  and  to  have  sonnets  addressed  to  her ;  that 
she  took  great  delight  in  the  masques  and  plays,  triumphs 
and  dumb  shows,  which  they  got  up  for  her  amusement ; 
and  that  many  of  these  very  plays  were  performed  before 
her  at  Court  as  they  came  out,  and  were  "  well  liked  of  her 
Majesty." 

i  Life  of  Shakes.,  161. 

2  Phil,  of  Shales.  Plays  Unfolded,  1857. 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  117 

§  3.   THE    HISTORICAL   PLAYS. 

As  the  work  proceeded,  the  plan  would  very  soon  be  con- 
ceived of  a  connected  and  continuous  series  of  historical 
dramas,  which  should  embrace  the  entire  period  of  the  civil 
wars  of  the  Roses,  rich  enough  in  tragic  story  and  event, 
and  affording  ample  materials  for  illustrative  examples  in 
the  more  dignified  subjects  of  a  civil  and  moral  nature, 
beginning  with  the  "  King  John,"  as  it  were  by  way  of  pre- 
lude, in  which  the  legitimate  heir  to  the  throne  is  set  aside, 
and  the  nation  is  plunged  into  civil  war ;  and  continuing  in 
subject  and  design,  though  not  composed,  or  produced,  in 
strict  chronological  order,  with  the  weak  and  despotic  reign 
of  Richard  II.,  whose  imbecility  leads  to  another  usurpa- 
tion of  the  crown,  with  all  the  terrible  consequences  of 
disastrous  civil  war ;  and  extending  through  the  two  parts 
of  the  "  Henry  IV.,"  the  "  Henry  V.,"  and  the  three  parts 
of  the  "  Henry  VI.,"  to  the  coming  in  of  Henry  the  Sev- 
enth in  the  "  Richard  III.,"  when  the  two  Roses  are  finally 
united  in  one  line,  and  a  tragical  history  is  brought  to  an 
end  in  the  more  peaceful  times  which  followed :  a  scheme 
which  may  even  have  been  suggested  by  Sackville's  trag- 
edy of  "  Ferrex  and  Porrex  "  and  the  "  Complaint  of  Buck- 
ingham." Speaking  of  Elizabeth  Woodville,  Dowager  of 
Edward  IV.,  Bacon  says  her  history  "  was  matter  of  trag- 
edy," 1  as  it  is  very  effectually  made  to  appear  in  the  "  Rich- 
ard III."  The  same  historical  subject  was  continued,  in 
due  time,  in  a  plain  prose  history  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
VII.,  which  contains  a  graphic  and  "speaking  picture" 
of  the  false  pretender,  Perkin  Warbeck,  "a  counterfeit 
of  that  Richard,  Duke  of  York  (second  son  to  Edward 
the  Fourth),"  of  whom  there  was  divulged  "a  flying  opin- 
ion "  that  "  he  was  not  murdered  in  the  Tower " :  where- 
fore, "  this  being  one  of  the  strangest  examples  of  a  per- 
sonation that  ever  was  in  elder  or  later  times."  it  is  also 

1  Hist,  of  Henry  VII. 


118  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

given  ;  and  it  is  written  in  the  true  Shakespearean  vein, 
and,  as  any  one  may  see  that  looks  sharply  enough,  lacks 
nothing  of  the  compactness,  brevity,  clearness,  and  beauty 
of  his  former  style,  dropping  only  the  high  tragic  buskin 
and  the  blank  verse.  And  here  and  there,  ideas  and  ex- 
pressions inevitably  crop  out  in  it,  all  unconsciously  to  him- 
self, which  strike  upon  the  ear  of  the  careful  listener  like 
the  sound  of  an  echo,  as  thus  :  — 

"  Neither  was  Perkin  for  his  part  wanting  to  himself 
either  in  gracious  and  princely  behaviour,  or  in  ready  and 
apposite  answers,  or  in  contenting  and  caressing  those  that 
did  apply  themselves  unto  him,  or  in  pretty  scorns  or  dis- 
dains to  those  that  seemed  to  doubt  of  him ;  but  in  all 
things  did  notably  acquit  himself:  insomuch  as  it  was  gen- 
erally believed  (as  well  amongst  great  persons  as  amongst 
the  vulgar)  that  he  was  indeed  Duke  Richard.  Nay,  him- 
self with  long  and  continual  counterfeiting  and  with  often 
telling  a  lie,  was  turned  (by  habit)  almost  unto  the  thing 
he  seemed  to  be,  and  from  a  liar  to  a  believer."  1 

And  we  have  the  same  ideas  and  similar  expressions,  in 
a  like  connection,  in  the  "  Tempest,"  as  follows :  — 

"  Pros.    I  thus  neglecting  worldly  ends,  all  dedicate 
To  closeness,  and  the  bettering  of  my  mind 
With  that,  which  but  by  being  so  retir'd 
O'er-priz'd  all  popular  rate,  in  my  false  brother 
Awak'd  an  evil  nature;  and  my  trust, 
Like  a  good  parent,  did  beget  of  him 
A  falsehood,  in  its  contrary  as  great 
As  my  trust  was ;  which  had,  indeed,  no  limit, 
A  confidence  sans  bound.    He,  being  thus  lorded, 
Not  only  with  what  my  revenue  yielded, 
But  what  my  power  might  else  exact,  —  like  one, 
Who  having,  unto  truth,  by  telling  of  it,2 
Made  such  a  sinner  of  his  memory, 

1  Hist,  of  Hen.  VII. ;   Works  (Boston),  XI.  210. 

2  So  in  the  Folio,  and  in  all  editions  I  have  seen ;  but  I  believe  these 
words  are  an  error  of  the  press.  It  should  read  oft:  the  metre  requires  it; 
the  sense  requires  it;  and  this  authority  from  Bacon  may  be  said  to  demand 
it. 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  119 

To  credit  his  own  lie  — he  did  believe 
He  was  indeed  the  Duke ;  out  o'  th'  substitution, 
And  executing  th'  outward  face  of  royalty, 
With  all  prerogative :  —  hence  his  ambition 
Growing,  —  Dost  thou  hear? 

Miran.     Your  tale,  sir,  would  cure  deafness. 

Pros.    To  have  no  screen  between  this  part  he  play'd, 
And  him  he  play'd  it  for,  he  needs  will  be 
Absolute  Milan."—  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

The  similarity  of  the  thought,  in  this  often  telling  a  lie, 
is  noticed  by  Mr.  Spedding,1  who  remarks  that  the  sugges- 
tion came  from  Speed.  Shakespeare,  it  is  true,  as  well  as 
Bacon,  may  have  gotten  the  idea  from  that  author  ;  but  the 
general  tenor  of  both  passages,  and  the  peculiar  expression 
he  did  believe  he  was  indeed  the  Duke,  which  accompanies 
the  idea,  sounds  wonderfully  as  if  it  had  dropped  from  the 
same  mint,  in  both  cases.  Even  this  might  be  considered 
accidental,  if  it  stood  alone  ;  but  it  is  only  one  of  a  thou- 
sand instances  of  equal,  or  greater  force,  that  everywhere 
pervade  these  writings.  Nor  is  it  at  all  probable  that  Ba- 
con would  catch  both  the  idea  and  expression  from  Shake- 
speare's play:  in  fact,  it  is  far  more  probable  that  both 
came  from  Bacon  ;  for  we  learn  from  Mr.  Spedding's  pref- 
ace, that  Bacon  had  formed  the  design  of  writing  that  his- 
tory, and  had  actually  begun  it,  and  sketched  the  character 
of  Henry  VII.,  before  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  having 
doubtless  collected  materials  for  the  purpose,  and  made  a 
study  of  the  subject  and  of  the  story  of  Perkin,  at  the  time 
when  he  was  studying  the  historical  pictures  for  these  same 
dramatic  histories.  This  conjecture  is  confirmed  by  the 
circumstance  that  Prospero's  ■  false  brother,"  the  pretender 
in  the  play, 

"  confederates 

(So  dry  he  was  for  sway)  with  the  King  of  Naples." 

And  the  story  itself  seems  well-nigh  to  have  been  sug- 
gested by  the  account,  which  is  given  in  the  "  History  of 
Henry  VII.,"  of  the  French  embassy,  one  topic  of  which 

i  Note*  to  the  Hist,  of  Hen.  VII. 


120  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

was,  that  the  French  King  intended  "  to  make  war  upon 
the  kingdom  of  Naples,  being  now  in  the  possession  of  a 
bastard  slip  of  Aragon  ;  but  appertaining  unto  his  majesty 
by  clear  and  undoubted  right ;  which,  if  he  should  not  by 
just  arms  seek  to  recover,  he  would  neither  acquit  his  hon- 
our nor  answer  it  to  his  people ; "  and  so,  he  had  resolved  to 
make  "  the  reconquest  of  Naples."  1  Mention  is  made  also 
of  "Alphonso,  Duke  of  Calabria,  eldest  son  to  Ferdinando, 
King  of  Naples  " ;  and  among  the  characters  in  the  play 
are  "Alonso,  King  of  Naples  ;  Prospero,  the  rightful  Duke 
of  Milan  ;  Antonio,  his  brother,  the  usurping  Duke,"  and 
"  Ferdinand,  son  to  the  King  of  Naples  " :  — 

"  Pros.    This  King  of  Naples,  being  an  enemy 
To  me  inveterate,  hearkens  my  brother's  suit; 
Which  was,  that  he,  in  lieu  o'  the  premises, 
Of  homage,  and  I  know  not  how  much  tribute, 
Should  presently  extirpate  me  and  mine 
Out  of  the  dukedom."  — Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

And  so,  the  story  in  the  play  itself  having  been  drawn  from 
the  same  quarry  of  materials  as  the  history,  this  idea,  hav- 
ing been  once  written  into  the  play,  in  1611,  (if  not  already 
written  into  his  notes  for  the  History  before  1603),  very 
naturally  drops  out  again  in  the  completed  work  of  1621  ; 
and  that,  too,  at  about  the  same  time  when  we  may  suppose 
he  was  engaged  in  revising  the  plays  themselves  for  the 
Folio  of  1623. 

And  further  still,  these  same  Italian  and  Spanish  histo- 
ries, in  the  very  next  year  (1612),  are  introduced  into 
Bacon's  speech  in  the  Countess  of  Shrewsbury's  case,  in 
immediate  connection  with  Henry  VII.  and  Perkin  "War- 
beck  ;  and  in  such  manner  as  to  show  that  they  were  still 
fresh  in  his  memory  ;  and,  in  the  facts  stated  as  well  as  in 
the  style  and  manner  of  the  narration,  the  critical  reader 
will  discover  some  very  suggestive  resemblances  with  a  part 
of  the  story  of  the  "  Tempest."  The  Countess  had  refused 
l  Hist  of  Hen.  VII. ;  Works  (Boston),  XL  162, 199. 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  121 

to  answer  in  the  matter  of  Arabella  Stuart,  who  had  mar- 
ried Seymour,  without  the  King's  consent,  and  fled  the 
kingdom.     Bacon's  speech  proceeds  thus  :  — 

"  And  accordingly  hath  been  the  practice  of  the  wisest 
and  stoutest  princes  to  hold  for  matter  pregnant  of  peril, 
to  have  any  near  them  in  blood  to  fly  into  foreign  parts. 
Wherein  I  will  not  wander ;  but  take  example  of  King 
Henry  the  Seventh,  a  prince  not  unfit  to  be  paralleled  with 
his  Majesty.  I  mean  not  the  particular  of  Perkin  War- 
beck,  for  he  was  but  an  idol  or  a  disguise ;  but  the  exam- 
ple I  mean  is  that  of  the  earl  of  Suffolk,  whom  the  king 
extorted  from  Philip  of  Austria.  The  story  is  memorable, 
that  Philip,  after  the  death  of  Isabella,  coming  to  take  pos- 
session of  his  kingdom  of  Castile,  which  was  but  matrimo- 
nial to  his  father-in-law  Ferdinando  of  Aragon,  was  cast  by 
weather  upon  the  coast  of  Weymouth,  where  the  Italian 
story  saith,  King  Henry  used  him  in  all  things  else  as  a 
prince,  but  in  one  thing  as  a  prisoner ;  for  he  forced  upon 
him  to  promise  to  restore  the  earl  of  Suffolk  that  was  fled 
into  Flanders."  1 

Now,  as  King  Henry  VH.  was  deemed  a  prince  "  not 
unfit  to  be  paralleled  with  his  Majesty,"  so  Prospero  in  the 
play  was  "  the  prime  Duke,"  and 

'  "(so reputed 

In  dignity)  and,  for  the  liberal  arts, 
Without  a  parallel."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

And  as  Philip,  coming  to  his  kingdom  of  Castile,  "  which 
was  but  matrimonial  to  his  father-in-law  Ferdinando,"  was 
"  cast  by  weather  upon  the  coast  of  Weymouth,"  so  the 
King  of  Naples,  sailing  with  Prince  Ferdinand,  his  son,  for 
Tunis,  where  his  daughter  Claribel  was  to  find  a  husband, 
was  cast  away  in  a  storm  upon  the  coast  of  the  imaginary 
Atlantic  island  ;  and  the  fortunes  of  Prince  Ferdinand,  as 
well  as  the  principal  events  and  the  leading  interest  of  the 
story  in  the  play,  are  made  to  turn  upon  matters  matri- 
i  2  Howell's  State  Trials,  775. 


122  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

monial  to  his  intended  father-in-law,  the  rightful  Duke  of 
Milan.  Prospero  regains  his  dukedom;  Ferdinand,  like 
Philip,  is  restored  to  his  kingdom  of  Naples,  with  Miranda  for 
a  wife,  in  due  time  "  to  be  King  and  Queen  there  " ;  and  the 
King  of  Naples  becomes  the  friend  of  the  restored  Duke 
of  Milan;  and,  in  order  to  accomplish  the  object,  as  King 
Henry  VII.  used  Philip  in  the  speech,  so  Ferdinand  in  the 
play  is  "  used  in  all  things  else  as  a  prince,  but  in  one  thing 
as  a  prisoner."  In  the  shipwreck,  Ferdinand  is  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  ship's  company,  and  cast  upon  the 
shore  alone  ;  the  invisible  spirit  Ariel  is  specially  sent  to 
draw  him  on  by  means  of  charms  and  music  towards  Pros- 
pero's  cell ;  on  the  way,  he  falls  in  with  Miranda,  much  to 
the  surprise  and  admiration  of  both ;  and,  as  the  intent 
was,  they  forthwith  fall  in  love.  Prospero,  seeing  that  his 
charm  is  working  more  than  fast  enough,  suddenly  puts  on 
an  air  of  severity  towards  Ferdinand :  — 

"Pros.  [Aside.]    They  are  both  in  either's  pow'rs ;  but 
this  swift  business 
I  must  uneasy  make,  lest  too  light  winning 
Make  the  prize  light." 

He  denounces  Ferdinand  as  a  usurper  and  a  spy,  that  has 
come  upon  the  island  to  win  it  from  him  "  the  lord  on  't." 
Ferdinand,  after  some  show  of  resistance,  befitting  his 
princely  quality,  submits  himself  a  prisoner,  thus  :  — 

"  Pros.  [  To  Ferd.]  Come  on ;  obey : 

Thy  nerves  are  in  their  infancy  again, 
And  have  no  vigor  in  them. 

Ferd.  So  they  are : 

My  spirits,  as  in  a  dream,  are  all  bound  up. 
My  father's  loss,  the  weakness  which  I  feel, 
The  wreck  of  all  my  friends,  and  this  man's  threats, 
To  whom  I  am  subdu'd,  are  but  light  to  me, 
Might  I  but  through  my  prison  once  a  day 
Behold  this  maid.    All  corners  else  o'  th'  earth 
Let  liberty  make  use  of:  space  enough 
Have  I  in  such  a  prison. 

Pros.  [Aside.]  It  works."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

There  is  no  other  prison,  however,  than  the  manner  in 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  123 

which  he  is  used ;  there  is  some  temporary  restraint  for  a 
purpose  which  is  accomplished,  the  marriage  and  a  restora- 
tion of  friendship  with  Naples ;  and  so  he  is  treated  in  one 
thing  as  a  prisoner,  but  in  all  things  else  as  a  prince.  He 
is  even  set  to  the  drudgery  of  piling  logs,  in  order  to  bring 
his  sincerity  to  the  final  test.  This  apparent  harshness 
awakens  the  sympathy  of  Miranda,  and  she  offers  to  help 
him :  — 

"Ferd.  I  am  in  my  condition 

A  prince,  Miranda; 

and  for  your  sake, 

Am  I  this  patient  logman."  — Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

The  same  story  is  told  more  at  length  in  the  "  History 
of  Henry  VII.,"  1  in  which  King  Philip  is  "  surprised  with 
a  cruel  tempest,"  and  "  the  ship  wherein  the  King  and 
Queen  were,  with  two  other  small  barks  only,  torn  and  in 
great  peril,  to  escape  the  fury  of  the  weather,  thrust  into 
"Weymouth.  King  Philip  himself,  having  not  been  used 
as  it  seems  to  sea,  all  wearied  and  extreme  sick,  would 
needs  land  to  refresh  his  spirits."  And  when  King  Henry 
asks  for  the  return  of  "  that  same  hare-brain  wild  fellow," 
his  subject  the  earl  of  Suffolk,  the  King  of  Castile  replies, 
That  can  I  not  do  with  my  honour,  and  less  with  yours  ;  for 
you  will  be  thought  to  have  used  me  as  a  prisoner"  The 
same  style  runs  from  his  pen,  whether  in  prose  or  verse: — 

"G<m.    Was  Milan  thrust  from  Milan,  that  his  issue 
Should  become  kings  of  Naples  ? 

Pros.  but,  nowsoe'er  you  have 

Been  justled  from  your  senses,  know  for  certain, 
That  I  am  Prospero,  and  that  very  duke 
Which  was  thrust  forth  of  Milan;  who  most  strangely 
Upon  this  shore,  where  you  were  wrack'd,  was  landed, 
To  be  the  lord  on't"  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  the  tale  there  ends  with  the  same  dream  in  which 
Ferdinand's  spirits  (in  the  play)  were  all  bound  up,  thus : 
—  "  So  that  as  the  felicity  of  Charles  the  Eighth  was  said 

i  Works  (Boston),  XI.  342-348. 


124  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

to  be  a  dream,  so  the  adversity  of  Ferdinando  was  said  like- 
wise to  be  a  dream,  it  passed  over  so  soon." 

The  earliest  authentic  notice  that  we  have  of  the  exist- 
ence of  this  play  is  the  entry  discovered  by  Cunningham 
in  the  accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court,  in  the  Book  for 
1611-12,  in  which  it  is  named  as  having  been  performed 
before  his  Majesty  at  Whitehall,  on  "  Hallowmas  night," 
which,  falling  on  the  first  day  of  November,  is  presumed  to 
have  been  November  1,  1611.1  It  was  also  acted  at  Court, 
during  the  festivities  attending  the  nuptials  of  the  Princess 
Elizabeth  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1613.  The  best 
critics  have  assigned  the  composition  of  the  play  to  the 
year  1611.  Some  incidents  in  it  make  it  quite  certain  that 
it  must  have  been  written  after  the  voyage  of  the  ''Admi- 
ral," and  after  the  publication  of  Jourdan's  account  of  it, 
in  his  "  Discovery  of  the  Barmudas,  otherwise  called  the  lie 
of  Divels,"  in  1610;  which  islands  are  therein  "supposed 
to  be  enchanted  and  inhabited  with  witches  and  devils, 
which  grew  by  reason  of  accustomed  monstrous  thunder- 
storm and  tempest  near  unto  those  islands  "  ;  and  the  ship, 
"  by  God's  divine  providence,  at  a  high  water  ran  right 
between  two  strong  rocks,  where  it  stuck  fast,  without 
breaking,"  and  all  were  saved.  So,  in  the  play,  when  Pros- 
pero  is  giving  an  account  to  Miranda  how  they  were  sent 
to  sea  in  u  a  rotten  carcass  of  a  boat,"  to  which  "  the  sigh- 
ing winds  did  but  loving  wrong,"  until  there  in  that  island 
they  arrived,  we  have  a  similar  expression,  thus  :  — 

"Miran.  How  came  we  ashore  ? 

Pros.    By  Providence  divine." 

The  Countess  of  Shrewsbury's  case  was  heard  at  Trinity 
term  (that  is,  in  the  beginning  of  summer)  of  1612  ;2  and 
taking  the  play  to  have  been  first  produced  in  the  preced- 
ing November,  there  would   seem  to  be  no  occasion  for 

i  White's  Shakes.,  II.  p.  6. 
2  7  Coke's  Eep.  9i. 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  125 

wonder  that,  at  the  date  of  this  trial,  these  same  Italian 
stories  which  had  so  lately  served  the  purpose  of  the  poet, 
should  have  been  still  floating  in  the  imagination  of  the 
orator ;  nor  that  they  should  have  been  thus  reproduced  in 
historic  accuracy,  not  without  some  poetic  effect,  to  illus- 
trate the  legal  argument. 

Critical  editors  have  been  perplexed  to  find  the  sources 
of  the  story  of  the  "Tempest."  Mr.  "White  thinks  the 
characters  point  to  some  old  Italian  or  Spanish  tale  as  its 
foundation  ;  Collins  believed  it  was  founded  upon  "  a  ro- 
mance called  'Aurelio  and  Isabella,'  printed  in  Italian,  Span- 
ish, French,  and  English,  in  1588,"  which  neither  he  nor 
any  one  else,  it  seems,  has  ever  been  able  to  find  again ; 
others  have  traced  its  origin  to  Somers'  "Voyage"  and 
Jourdan's  "  Discovery " ;  and  probably  the  truth  is,  that 
suggestions  were  derived  from  a  variety  of  sources,  these 
included,  and  that  the  borrowed  materials,  mingled  with  the 
new  creations,  in  passing  through  the  limbec  of  his  pow- 
erful brain,  were  distilled  into  an  imaginary  essence,  alto- 
gether new  and  different  as  a  whole,  but  still  recognizable 
as  the  same  in  some  parts  and  phases,  which  exhibit  strik- 
ing ideal  resemblances,  close  analogies,  and  even  very  pal- 
pable identities  of  thought,  style,  and  diction.  And  here 
we  may  venture  to  make  an  application  of  the  words  of 
King  Alonso  in  the  play  :  — 

"Alon.    This  is  as  strange  a  maze  as  e'er  men  trod ; 
And  there  is  in  this  business  more  than  Nature 
"Was  ever  conduct  of.     Some  oracle 
Must  rectify  our  knowledge." 

This  is  not  all.  There  are  more  instances  of  like  kind 
in  this  same  History,  of  which  one  or  two  may  be  cited.  In 
the  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  written  about  the  year  1603, 
we  find  this  rather  singular  expression  :  — 

"  For  such  a  warped  slip  of  wilderness 
Ne'er  issued  from  his  blood."  — Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

And  in  the  "  History  of  Henry  VII."  Perkin  Warbeck  is 


126  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

made  to  say,  "  And  from  that  hand  to  the  wide  wilderness 
(as  I  may  truly  call  it)  for  so  the  world  hath  been  to  me ; " * 
and  again,  King  Henry  says,  "  France  is  no  wilderness."  a 
And  then  we  have  this:  "The  King  our  master  hath  a 
purpose  and  determination  to  make  war  upon  the  kingdom 
of  Naples,  being  now  in  the  possession  of  a  bastard  slip 
of  Aragon ;  "  8  which  may  remind  us  again  of  "  the  blind 
rascally  boy  "  Cupid,  in  the  "As  You  Like  It," 4  "  that  same 
wicked  bastard  of  Venus,  that  was  begot  of  thought,  con- 
ceived of  spleen,  and  born  of  madness."  In  like  manner, 
we  find  in  the  Essays  the  following :  "  True  friends  ;  with- 
out which  the  world  is  but  a  wilderness," 5  and  in  the 
New  Atlantis,  "  the  greatest  wilderness  of  waters  in  the 
world  ; " 6  and  in  a  speech,  "  you  take  pleasure  in  a  wilder- 
ness of  variety." 7  And  again,  we  have  it  in  the  plays, 
thus  :  "  Environed  with  a  wilderness  of  sea ; "  8  and  again, 
"  Rome  is  but  a  wilderness  of  tigers ;  " 9  and  still  again,  "  I 
would  not  have  given  it  for  a  wilderness  of  monkeys."  10 
Can  all  this  be  accidental  ? 

Still  further,  we  have  in  the  "  Hamlet "  these  lines :  — 

"  Ghost.  [Beneath.]     Swear  by  this  sword. 
Ham.    Well  said,  old  mole !  canst  work  i'  th'  ground  so  fast  ? 
A  worthy  pioneer!  once  more  remove  " :  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

which  crops  out  again  in  the  "  Henry  VII."  thus  :  — 

"He  had  such  moles  perpetually  working  and  casting  to  undermine 
him."  u 

And  it  appears  again  in  a  masque  which  he  wrote  for 
Essex,  thus :  — 

"  They  [lovers]  are  charged  with  descending  too  low :  it  is  as  the  poor 
mole,  which  seeing  not  the  clearness  of  the  air,  diveth  into  the  darkness  of 
the  earth."  & 

i  Hist.  Henry  VII. ;  Works  (Boston),  XL  246. 
2  Ibid.  181.  t  Works  (Mont.),  XIII.  121. 

8  Ibid.  162.  8  Titus  Andr.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

<  Act  IV.  Sc.  1.  9  ibid.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

«  Works  (Boston),  XII.  166.  10  Merck,  of  Venice,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

«  Works  (Plrilad.),  n.  323.  «  Works  (Boston),  XL  360. 

"  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life,  I.  389. 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  127 

And  again  he  says,  — 

"  and  become  some  sorry  book-maker,  or  a  true  pioneer  in  that 

mine  of  truth,  which,  he  said,  lay  so  deep."  * 

And  again,  in  this  History,  speaking  of  the  conditional 
treason  of  Sir  William  Stanley,  who  had  said  of  Perkin 
Warbeck,  "That  if  he  were  sure  that  that  young  man  were 
King  Edwards  son,  he  would  never  bear  arms  against  him" 
Bacon  continues  thus  :  — 

"  But  for  the  conditional,  it  seemeth  the  judges  of  that  time  (who  were 
learned  men,  and  the  three  chief  of  them  of  the  privy  counsel,)  thought 
it  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  admit  Iffs  and  Ands  to  qualify  words  of 
treason;  whereby  every  man  might  express  his  malice,  and  blanch  his 
danger."  2 

So  in  Richard's  council  on  the  Coronation,  we  have  at 
illustration  of  this  same  kind  of  treason,  in  these  lines  :  — 

"  Hast.    If  they  have  done  this  deed,  my  noble  lord,  — 

Gbs.  If,  thou  protector  of  this  damned  strumpet, 
Talk'st  thou  to  me  of '  ifs '  ?  —  Thou  art  a  traitor :  — 
Off  with  his  head !  "  —  Richard  III.,  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

But  to  make  a  special  compliment  to  the  throne  and  line 
of  Henry  VII.,  and  to  his  present  Majesty,  King  James,  in 
particular,  a  last  grand  effort  is  made,  just  when  it  will  at 
least  express  his  gratitude  for  the  royal  promise  to  succeed 
to  the  Attorney-General's  place,  and,  at  the  same  time,  grace 
the  nuptials  of  the  Palatine  branch  in  the  Princess  Eliz- 
abeth ;  and  the  "  Henry  VIII."  deliberately  honors  and 
magnifies  the  King  himself,  by  carefully  weaving  into  the 
scenes  the  surpassing  excellence  and  beauty  of  Anne  Bul- 
len  (of  whom  there  is  nothing  in  Holinshed,  from  whom 
the  rest  of  the  story  is  almost  literally  taken),  closing  with 
the  unrivalled  virtues,  fortune,  and  honor  of  her  descend- 
ant, the  virgin  queen :  — 

"  Nor  shall  this  peace  sleep  with  her:  but  as  when 
The  bird  of  wonder  dies,  the  maiden  phoenix, 
Her  ashes  new  create  another  heir, 
As  great  in  admiration  as  herself, 

1  Letter.  a  Works  (Boston),  XI.  228. 


128  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

So  shall  she  leave  her  blessedness  to  one 

(When  heaven  shall  call  her  from  this  cloud  of  darkness) 

Who  from  the  sacred  ashes  of  her  honour 

Shall  star-like  rise,  as  great  in  fame  as  she  was, 

And  so  stand  fix'd.    Peace,  plenty,  love,  truth,  terror, 

That  were  the  servants  of  this  chosen  infant, 

Shall  then  be  his,  and  like  a  vine  grow  to  him: 

Wherever  the  bright  sun  of  heaven  shall  shine, 

His  honour  and  the  greatness  of  his  name 

Shall  be,  and  make  new  nations :  he  shall  flourish, 

And,  like  a  mountain  cedar,  reach  his  branches 

To  all  the  plains  about  him."  — Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

This  is  doubtless  the  same  star  and  vine  that  are  spoken  of 
in  the  letter  to  his  Majesty,  thanking  him  for  "  his  gracious 
acceptance "  of  his  book  (the  "  Novum  Organum "),  in 
which  he  says :  — 

"I  see  your  majesty  is  a  star  that  hath  benevolent  aspect  and  gracious 
influence  upon  all  things  that  tend  to  a  general  good. 

"  '  Daphni,  quid  antiquos  signorum  suspicis  artus? 
Ecce  Dionaei  processit  Caesaris  astrum  ; 
Astrum,  quo  segetes  gauderent  frugibus,  et  quo 
Duceret  apricis  in  collibus  uva  colorem.' 

[Virg.,  Echg.  ix.  46-9.] 

"  This  work,  which  is  for  the  bettering  of  men's  bread  and  wine,  which 
are  the  characters  of  temporal  blessings  and  sacraments  of  eternal,  I  hope, 
by  God's  holy  providence,  will  be  ripened  by  Caesar's  Star."  1 

And  it  appears  again,  thus  :  — 

"  Henry  the  Fifth !  thy  ghost  I  invocate ; 
Prosper  this  realm,  keep  it  from  civil  broils ! 
Combat  with  adverse  planets  in  the  heavens ! 
A  far  more  glorious  star  thy  soul  will  make 
Than  Julius  Caesar."  — 1  Henry  VI.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Prospero,  in  the  "  Tempest,"  also  had  his  star :  — 

"  Pros.        and  by  my  prescience 

I  find  my  zenith  doth  depend  upon 
A  most  auspicious  star,  whose  influence 
If  now  I  court  not,  but  omit,  my  fortunes 
Will  ever  after  droop."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

That  Bacon  had  the  subject  of  the  History  of  England 
much  in  mind,  having  long  contemplated  undertaking  to 
l  Letter,  19  Oct.  1620;   Works  (Mont.),  XII.  395. 


THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS.  129 

write  it  anew,  we  learn  from  his  letter  to  the  Lord  Chancel- 
lor, written  soon  after  the  accession  of  King  James,  in  which 
the  following  passage  may  be  particularly  cited  here  :  — 

"  The  act  I  speak  of  is  the  order  given  by  his  majesty 
for  the  erection  of  a  tomb  or  monument  for  our  late  sover- 
eign Queen  Elizabeth  ;  wherein  I  may  note  much,  but  this 
at  this  time,  that  as  her  majesty  did  always  right  to  his 
majesty's  hopes,  so  his  highness  doth,  in  all  things,  right  to 
her  memory ;  a  very  just  and  princely  retribution.  But 
from  this  occasion  by  a  very  easy  ascent,  I  passed  further, 
being  put  in  mind,  by  this  representative  of  her  person,  of 
the  more  true  and  more  perfect  representative  which  is  of 
her  life  and  government.  For  as  statues  and  pictures  are 
dumb  histories,  so  histories  are  speaking  pictures ;  wherein 
(if  my  affection  be  not  too  great,  or  my  reading  too  small), 
I  am  of  this  opinion,  that  if  Plutarch  were  alive  to  write 
lives  by  parallels,  it  would  trouble  him,  for  virtue  and  for- 
tune both,  to  find  for  her  a  parallel  amongst  women.  And 
though  she  was  of  the  passive  sex,  yet  her  government  was 
so  active,  as,  in  my  simple  opinion,  it  made  more  impres- 
sion upon  the  several  states  of  Europe  than  it  received 
from  thence." 1 

All  this,  it  is  easy  to  see,  not  only  harmonizes  well  with 
the  view  here  taken  of  these  dramatic  histories  or  "  speak- 
ing pictures,"  but  rings  peculiarly  like  the  sonorous  trib- 
ute to  Queen  Elizabeth  in  the  "  Henry  VIII.,"  which  reads 
thus :  — 

"  Cran.  Let  me  speak,  sir, 

For  Heaven  now  bids  me ;  and  the  words  I  utter 
Let  none  think  flattery,  for  they  '11  find  'em  truth. 
This  royal  infant,  —  Heaven  still  move  about  her !  — 
Though  in  her  cradle,  yet  now  promises 
Upon  this  land  a  thousand  thousand  blessings, 
Which  time  shall  bring  to  ripeness.    She  shall  be 
(But  few  now  living  can  behold  that  goodness) 
A  pattern  to  all  princes  living  with  her, 
And  all  that  shall  succeed:  Saba  was  never 

i  Letter,  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  69. 


130  THE  HISTORICAL  PLAYS. 

More  covetous  of  wisdom  and  fair  virtue 

Than  this  pure  soul  shall  be :  all  princely  graces, 

That  mould  up  such  a  mighty  piece  as  this  is, 

With  all  the  virtues  that  attend  the  good, 

Shall  still  be  doubled  on  her :  truth  shall  nurse  her ; 

Holy  and  heavenly  thoughts  still  counsel  her : 

She  shall  be  lov'd  and  fear'd:  her  own  shall  bless  her: 

Her  foes  shake  like  a  field  of  beaten  corn, 

And  hang  their  heads  with  sorrow :  good  grows  with  her. 

In  her  days  every  man  shall  eat  in  safety 

Under  his  own  vine  what  he  plants;  and  sing 

The  merry  songs  of  peace  to  all  his  neighbours. 

God  shall  be  truly  known ;  and  those  about  her 

From  her  shall  read  the  perfect  waj's  of  honour, 

And  by  those  claim  their  greatness,  not  by  blood." 

Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

And  so  King  James  is  ingeniously  represented,  and  with  a 

certain  degree  of  poetic  truthfulness,  as  inheriting  all  this 

honor  and  virtue  and  greatness  even  from  Henry  VII.,  and 

from  Anne  Bullen,  not  by  direct  descent  of  blood,  indeed, 

but  through  the  ashes  of  this  wonderful  phoenix,  as  of  that 

"more  true  and  more  perfect  representative  which  is  of 

her  life  and  government." 

At  the  same  time,  this  illustrative  example  in  a  most 

dignified  subject  rounds  out  the  historical  series  of  those 

"  actual  types  and  models "  which  were  "  to   place,  as  it 

were,  before  our  eyes  the  whole  process  of  the  mind,  and 

the  continuous  frame  and  order  of  discovery  in  particular 

subjects  selected  for  their  variety  and  importance  " 1  (as  I 

will  endeavor  to  make  appear)  ;  and  this  one  should  be 

"  Sad,  high,  and  working,  full  of  state  and  woe." 

And  having  thus  had  occasion  to  make  a  study  of  this 
period  of  history,  which  he  finds  to  be  "  wonderful,  indeed, 
from  the  Union  of  the  Roses  to  the  Union  of  the  King- 
doms," 2  the  preceding  period  having  already  been  treated 
of,  poetically,  in  the  "  speaking  pictures,"  and  so  far  as  lay 
in  "  the  potential  mood  "  ;  and  having  the  materials  at  hand 
for  the  work,  as  the  first  honors  which  he  undertakes  to  do 
l  Introd.  to  Nov.  Org.  2  j)e  Aug.  Scient..  Lib.  II.  c.  7. 


THE  GREATER  PLAYS.  131 

his  country  and  his  king  by  his  pen  and  the  help  of  those 
"  other  arts  which  may  give  form  to  matter,"  he  not  only 
takes  up  again  his  former  sketch  of  the  "  History  of  Henry 
VII.,"  laid  aside  since  before  1603,  and  perfects  and  com- 
pletes it  into  a  tribute  worthy  to  be  submitted  to  "  the  file 
of  his  Majesty's  judgment,"  and  dedicated  to  Prince 
Charles  as  the  first  fruit  of  his  banishment,  which  he  ac- 
complishes in  one  summer,  but  also,  the  "  History  of  Henry 
VIII.,"  in  whose  reign  began  that  great  change  in  the 
Church,  which  was  "  such  as  had  hitherto  rarely  been 
brought  upon  the  stage," 1  long  since  contemplated,  of  which 
a  beginning,  likewise,  has  already  been  made  that  is  "  like 
a  fable  of  the  poets  "  ;  but  deserves  "  all  in  a  piece  a  wor- 
thy narration,"  and,  time  and  health  permitting,  it  is  to  be 
likewise  dedicated  to  Prince  Charles.  But  time  fails  him, 
and  it  is  never  done. 

§  4.    THE    GREATER    PLATS. 

Furthermore,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  the  more  philo- 
sophical and  greater  plays  were  written  after  1600,  when 
Bacon  was  more  than  forty  years  of  age  and  in  the  maturity 
of  his  powers  (as  indeed  William  Shakespeare  also  must 
have  been)  ;  when  his  philosophical  and  critical  studies  had 
become  still  more  universal,  exact,  and  profound  ;  when  his 
conceptions  of  nature  and  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
his  theories  of  practical  sciences,  civil  institutions,  and 
moral  relations,  his  views  of  society  and  humanity,  his 
experience  in  human  affairs  and  his  observation  of  human 
life  and  character  in  all  ranks,  phases,  conditions,  and  de- 
grees, had  become  more  ample  and  perfect ;  when  his  new 
rhetoric,  his  critical  survey  of  all  the  arts  of  delivery,  and 
his  study  of,  the  nature  of  "  true  art,"  and  of  the  uses  and 
proper  function  of  true  poetry,  had  been  matured,  and  his 
whole  culture  had  become  more  elaborate,  deep,  and  com- 
plete ;  —  a  kind  of  culture  which  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
i  De  Aug.  Scient.,  Lib.  II.  c.  7. 


1S2  THE  GREATER  PLAYS. 

how  William  Shakespeare,  under  the  conditions  of  life 
which  environed  him,  could  by  any  possibility  have  attained 
to.  It  is  to  be  noted,  also,  that  the  first  sketches  of  the 
three  parts  of  the  "  Henry  VI."  (and  perhaps,  also,  of  the 
"  King  John  "),  the  earliest  plays  of  the  historical  series, 
written,  it  may  be,  before  the  entire  plan  was  fully  con- 
ceived, and  before  the  first  play  in  the  historical  order  of 
the  wars  of  the  Roses,  the  "  Richard  II.,"  was  produced, 
were  taken  up  again,  afterwards,  and  rewritten,  greatly 
elaborated,  and  reproduced,  in  conformity  with  the  rest  of 
the  series  ;  and,  of  the  first  part  of  the  "  Henry  VI.,"  which 
exhibits  greater  care  and  maturity  of  judgment  in  the  ex- 
ecution than  the  other  parts,  which,  nevertheless,  contain 
passages  that  may  stand  before  the  throne  of  the  tragic 
muse  beside  the  Greek  tragedy  itself  without  blushing, 
done  in  the  finest  lyric  style  of  the  ancients,  and  plainly 
intended  to  be,  to  some  extent  at  least,  in  imitation  of  the 
classic  model,  we  hear  nothing,  until  it  appears  for  the  first 
time  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  beyond  the  bare  fact  that  such  a 
play  existed,  in  some  form,  with  the  other  parts,  at  an  early 
date.  The  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  produced  in  1595,  though 
conceived  on  profoundly  philosophical  principles,  bearing 
strong  traces  of  the  "  Fable  of  Cupid  "  and  the  "  Nemesis  " 
of  Francis  Bacon  (as  will  be  shown),  does  not  exhibit  the 
same  degree  of  matured  strength  and  finish  as  the  later 
productions,  though  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  plays 
upon  the  stage.  The  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  un- 
doubtedly written  about  the  year  1594,  though  there  ap- 
pears to  be  no  certain  mention  of  it  before  1598,  having 
been  first  printed  in  1600,  is  a  wonderful  creation,  indeed, 
and  entirely  fit  to  be  performed,  as  it  was,  before  the 
Queen's  Majesty  at  Whitehall ;  but  the  writer  had  not  yet 
wholly  freed  himself  from  the  shackles  of  rhyme,  nor  from 
the  glowing  fancy  and  "  strong  imagination  "  of 

"  The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet," 


THE  GREATER  PLAYS.  133 

nor  from  the  philosophy  of  Cupid  and  the  allurements  of 
the  Court,  as  is  evident  in  these  lines :  — 

"  Ober.   That  very  time  I  saw  (but  thou  could'st  not), 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  Earth, 
Cupid  all  arm'd :  a  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal,  throned  by  the  West, 
And  loos'd  his  love-shaft  smartly  from  his  bow, 
As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts : 
But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  nery  shaft 
Quench'd  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  wat'ry  moon, 
And  the  imperial  vot'ress  passed  on, 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free."  — Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

Between  1594  and  1600,  the  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  the 
"As  You  Like  It,"  the  "  Richard  III.,"  the  "  Merchant  of 
Venice,"  and  the  two  parts  of  the  "  Henry  IV.,"  may  take 
rank,  in  many  respects,  with  the  greater  plays  ;  but  after 
1600,  come  the  ■  Twelfth  Night,"  the  «  Othello,"  the  ■  Ham- 
let," the  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  the  "  Lear,"  the  "  Mac- 
beth," the  "Julius  Caesar,"  the  "Antony  and  Cleopatra," 
the  "  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  the. "  Coriolanus,"  the  "  Cym- 
beline,"  the  "  Winter's  Tale,"  the  "  Tempest,"  the  "  Henry 
VIII."  and  the  "  Timon,"  splendid  dramas  all,  the  most 
masterly  productions  of  their  author,  and,  beyond  all  ques- 
tion, the  work  of  a  profound  thinker,  a  critical  philosopher, 
a  practised  writer,  a  learned  scholar,  and  a  polished  culture, 
as  well  as  of  that  artistic  genius  and  high  order  of  intel- 
lectual endowment,  which  nature  might  give  to  any  man. 
Twelve  of  these  fifteen  plays  were  published,  for  the  first 
time,  in  the  Folio  of  1623  :  of  some  four  or  five  of  them 
it  is  not  positively  known  that  they  had  been  performed 
at  all  on  the  stage  ;  and  nearly  all  of  them  were  of  such 
a  kind  and  character  as  to  attract  less  the  attention  of  the 
theatre  and  the  public,  though  really  among  the  greatest  of 
the  author's  works ;  and  they  were  not  printed.  Some 
other  of  the  more  philosophical  plays,  as  the  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  the  "  Hamlet," 
the  "  Lear,"  and  the  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  had  more 


134  THE  GREATER  PLAYS. 

attractive  qualities  for  the  public  eye  and  ear,  perhaps,  and 
they  kept  the  stage  and  were  printed.  The  "  Troilus  and 
Cressida,"  which  was  altogether  too  philosophically  pro- 
found and  stately,  too  learnedly  abstruse  and  lofty,  to  be 
popular  on  the  stage,  was  even  printed  first,  and  only  went 
to  the  theatre  afterwards,  where  its  stay  seems  to  have  been 
short. 

Of  the  ten  earlier  plays  which  were  first  printed  in  the 
Folio,  or  first  in  complete  form,  some,  it  seems,  had  seldom 
appeared  upon  the  stage,  and  others  had  been  printed,  at 
an  early  date,  as  first  draughts,  or  as  stolen  copies.  Of 
those  which  had  been  printed  before  1623,  there  were, 
among  the  more  attractive  and  popular  plays  on  the  stage, 
the  "  Richard  II.,"  the  "  Richard  III.,"  the  "  Merchant  of 
Venice,"  the  two  parts  of  the  "  Henry  IV.,"  the  "  Henry 
V.,"  the  "  Love's  Labor 's  Lost,"  and  the  "  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing,"  and  of  these,  printed  editions  had  been  more  in 
demand.  But  this  part  of  the  subject  is  so  dark,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  arrive  at  any  certain  conclusion,  or  any  clear 
notion,  in  what  manner  these  plays  came  to  be  printed  at 
all.  Doubtless  there  were  some  stolen  copies  and  surrep- 
titious editions,  especially  before.  1600.  The  "Titus  An- 
dronicus  "  was  entered  as  early  as  1594,  but  it  is  not  known 
to  have  been  printed  before  1 600.  The  first  sketch  of  the 
second  part  of  the  "  Henry  VI.,"  printed  in  1594  under  the 
title  of  "  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  of  the  Two  Fa- 
mous Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,"  and  that  of  the  third 
part,  printed  in  1595  under  the  style  of  "The  True  Trag- 
edy of  Richard,  Duke  of  York,"  both  without  the  name  of 
the  author,  were  very  probably  surreptitious  copies  of  the 
early  plays,  which  appear  to  have  been  upon  the  stage  as 
early,  at  least,  as  1587-88.  The  "  Merry  Wives  of  Wind- 
sor," first  printed  in  1602,  was  so  imperfect,  even  as  a  first 
sketch  of  the  play,  that  it  has  been  presumed  by  the  critics 
to  have  been  a  stolen  and  mangled  copy,  as  the  "  Hamlet  " 
of  1603  most  certainly  was.      So  far  as  we  have  any  posi- 


THE  GREATER  PLAYS.  135 

tive  knowledge,  the  second  edition  of  the  "  Richard  II.," 
which  was  printed  in  1598,  with  the  scene  of  deposing 
King  Richard  left  out,  was  the  first  one  that  bore  the  name 
of  William  Shakespeare  on  the  title-page ;  and  there  may 
have  been  some  special  reasons,  as  well  for  the  publication 
of  it  at  that  time  as  for  a  close  concealment  of  the  real 
author's  name  (as  we  shall  see  below)  ;  especially  when  it 
is  considered  that,  only  one  year  later,  Dr.  Hayward  was 
actually  sent  t©  the  Tower  for  publishing  the  "  First  Yeare 
of  King  Henry  the  Fourth,"  which  contained  little  else 
than  the  deposing  of  Richard  II.,  which  the  Queen  took  to 
be  a  seditious  and  treasonable  pamphlet ;  and  that  the 
Earl  of  Essex  was  charged  with  u  undutiful  carriage  "  to- 
ward her  Majesty,  in  that  he  allowed  it  to  be  dedicated  to 
him  ;  though,  on  being  warned  of  her  anger,  he  had  made 
all  haste  to  have  the  book  called  in  and  suppressed. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  previous  quartos  ap- 
proach so  nearly  to  the  more  perfect  copies  of  the  Folio, 
and  are  so  correctly  printed,  that  it  would  seem  to  be  highly 
probable  that  the  author  himself  had  had  some  hand  in  the 
supervision  of  the  press.  And  when  it  is  considered  how 
many  of  those  that  had  been  printed  in  quarto  were  re- 
modelled, rewritten,  enlarged,  elaborated,  corrected,  or 
amended,  before  they  appeared  again  in  the  Folio,  and 
how  many  of  the  plays  were  published  therein  for  the  first 
time,  and  of  what  kind  they  were,  we  may  easily  believe, 
not  only  that  the  editors  had  much  benefit  from  the  pos- 
session of  the  "  true  original  copies,"  but  that  even  the  true 
original  copies  themselves  had  undergone  much  revision 
and  emendation,  before  they  appeared  for  the  last  time  in 
the  finished  and  perfected  form  of  the  Folio  of  1623  ;  nor 
need  we  be  surprised  at  the  announcement  of  the  Preface, 
that  they  had  so  published  them  "as  where  (before)  you  were 
abused  with  divers  stolne  and  surreptitious  copies,  maimed 
and  deformed  by  the  frauds  and  stealthes  of  injurious  im- 
posters,  that  exposed  them :  even  those  are  now  offered  to 


136  ASSOCIATES. 

your  view  cured,  and  perfect  of  their  limbes ;  and  all  the 
rest,  absolute  in  their  numbers  as  he  conceived  them " : 
omnibus  numeris  suis  absolulam  ! 

And  that  such  was  the  fact,  the  history  of  the  "  Timon  of 
Athens "  may  furnish  at  least  some  slight  confirmation.  It 
has  been  observed  that  the  old  play  of  "  Timon  "  was  the 
work  of  some  other  author  altogether ;  and  the  studies  of 
the  later  critics,  especially  Mr.  Knight,  have  shown  that  the 
materials  and  the  story  of  this  play  must  have  been  drawn 
from  other  sources  than  that  old  play,  or  North's  transla- 
tion of  Plutarch ;  and,  in  fact,  that  they  came  chiefly  from 
the  untranslated  Greek  of  Lucian.  There  appears  to  be 
no  mention  on  record  of  any  performance  of  this  play  on 
the  stage  in  those  times,  nor  does  the  existence  of  it  appear 
to  have  been  known,  until  it  was  published  in  this  Folio ; 
and  (as  it  will  be  shown)  there  is  so  much  in  the  matter 
and  style  of  it  that  so  aptly  accords  with  the  external  his- 
tory of  Lord  Bacon's  life,  and  especially  with  his  later 
years,  and  so  many  distinct  traces  of  himself  in  it,  that  it  is 
not  difficult  to  believe  it  was  the  latest  production  of  his 
dramatic  muse. 

§  5.  ASSOCIATES. 

That  Francis  Bacon,  during  the  earlier  portion  of  the 
period  in  which  these  plays  were  produced,  comprising  also 
nearly  the  whole  period  of  the  sonnets  and  minor  poems, 
was  an  intimate  personal  friend,  acquaintance,  and  associate 
of  the  Earls  of  Essex,  Southampton,  Rutland,  Pembroke, 
and  Montgomery,  and  other  young  lords  and  courtiers,  who 
were  also,  at  the  same  time,  the  especial  patrons  and  con- 
stant frequenters  of  Shakespeare's  theatre,  may  be  taken 
as  an  indubitable  fact.  Not  only  in  the  relations  of  these 
great  personages,  but  in  the  manners  of  the  court  and  time, 
there  are  many  circumstances  which  tend  strongly  to  con- 
firm the  view  here  taken  of  this  authorship.  A  few  of 
them  may  be  particularly  noticed,  even  at  the  risk  of  some 


ASSOCIATES.  137 

slight  repetition.  It  was  in  1609  that  the  first  authentic 
edition  of  the  sonnets  was  dedicated  by  the  printer  to  "  Mr. 
W.  H.,"  the  only  begetter  of  them,  (supposed  by  Mr.  Col- 
lier and  others,  no  doubt  correctly,  to  mean  William  Her- 
bert, Earl  of  Pembroke,)  as  f  never  before  imprinted  " ; 1 
the  previous  smaller  edition  having  been  in  all  probability 
surreptitiously  published.  Now  it  is  worthy  of  mention,  at 
least,  that  Pembroke,  Rutland,  and  Montgomery,  were 
witnesses  to  Bacon's  patent  of  peerage  in  1618,  and  were 
present  at  his  investiture  with  the  coronet  of  St.  Alban  in 
1621 ;  and  to  Pembroke  and  Montgomery  was  dedicated 
the  Folio  of  1623.  It  is  historically  known  that  Bacon 
wrote  sonnets  to  the  Queen,  and  masques  and  devices  to  be 
exhibited  before  her.  Plays,  masques,  and  triumphs  were 
frequently  gotten  up,  sometimes  in  great  magnificence,  by 
these  young  lords  and  courtiers,  for  her  entertainment  at 
Court,  at  the  Universities,  at  the  Inns  of  Court,  or  at  their 
own  private  houses,  in  which  her  greatest  favorites  took  the 
leading  interest  and  the  largest  part.  Companies  of  play- 
ers were  kept  enrolled  among  the  servants  of  the  greater 
nobles,  or  were  licensed  under  their  patronage.  Shake- 
speare's theatres  received  the  royal  countenance  and  pro- 
tection. The  "  Lord  Chamberlain's  Servants "  of  the 
Globe  and  Blackfriars,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  became 
"  His  Majesty's  Servants,"  in  the  time  of  King  James. 
Nor  is  there  anything  improbable  in  the  supposition  that 
the  courtly  Francis  Bacon,  who  was  so  notoriously  given  to 
the  writing  of  masques  and  sonnets  for  the  edification  of 
the  virgin  Queen,  should  exert  his  genius  in  this  same 
direction  far  more  extensively  than  was  publicly  known,  or 
even  suspected  by  the  Queen  herself.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  some  of  the  plays  were  performed,  for  the  first  time, 
before  her  Majesty  at  Whitehall  and  other  palaces  ;  and, 
according  to  certain  traditions,  she  seems  to  have  taken  an 

i  Shakes.  Sonnets  (Fac-simile  of  the  ed.  of  1609,  from  the  Original  in  the 
Library  of  Bridgewater  House),  London,  1862. 


138  ASSOCIATES. 

especial  delight  in  the  fantastic  wit  and  superb  drolleries 
of  the  fat  knight  in  the  "  Henry  IV."  and  the  "  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor."  King  James  appears  to  have  taken 
equal  pleasure  in  these  dramatic  entertainments.  As  we 
have  seen,  many  of  the  plays  were  first  performed  before 
the  King  at  Court,  in  his  time.  And  the  "  Essay  on 
Masques  and  Triumphs,"  and  the  several  masques  them- 
selves, which  are  certainly  known  to  have  been  written  by 
Bacon,  afford  proof  enough  that  he  had  the  ability,  the 
Shakespearean  wit,  the  same  grace,  brevity,  and  beauty  of 
style,  an  imagination  equally  powerful,  and  a  love  for  the  . 
sport  tyfr h**n*&i  yuw.  i*  iM  lUufcU  *U%j  *  ""*£ 
King  James,  on  his  coming  into  England  in  1603,  was  .  •("«?. 
entertained  with  a  play  performed  by  Heming's  company,  YfjuitM, 
at  Wilton,  the  country-seat  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.  The 
"  Macbeth  "  was  evidently  suggested  by  the  change  of  dy- 
nasty and  the  Scottish  superstitions  concerning  demonol- 
ogy  and  witchcraft,  on  which  King  James  had  himself 
written  a  book;  and  the  new  sovereign  is  said  to  have 
acknowledged  the  compliment  in  an  autograph  letter  ad- 
dressed to  William  Shakespeare,  a  document  which  seems 
never  to  have  seen  the  light.  "  The  system  of  Daemon- 
ologie,"  says  Dr.  Johnson's  Preface,  "  was  immediately 
adopted  by  all  who  desired  either  to  gain  preferment,  or 
not  to  lose  it."  And  it  is  worthy  of  notice,  also,  in  this 
connection,  that  this  play  was  written  about  the  time  that 
Bacon  was  made  Solicitor-General ;  and  that  the  "  Henry 
VHI."  was  produced  in  great  splendor,  with  a  studied  com- 
pliment to  King  James,  just  when  he  had  obtained  the  royal  v 
promise  to  succeed  to  the  Attorney-General's  place.  Not 
that  King  James,  or  Queen  Elizabeth,  knew  that  Bacon 
was  the  author  of  these  plays  (though  it  might  be  difficult 
to  name  a  reason  why  they  should  not  have  known),  but 
that  they  may  very  well  have  understood,  at  least,  that  he, 
among  other  courtiers,  was  largely  instrumental  in  getting 
up  these  magnificent  entertainments  for  the  royal  amuse- 


ASSOCIATES.  139 

ment.  Both  of  them  certainly  knew  that  Bacon  "  had  a 
great  wit  and  much  learning,"  and  that  he  took  a  leading 
part  in  the  actual  composition  of  some  of  them. 

No  more  is  it  to  be  doubted,  that  the  intimate  personal 
relations  which  subsisted  between  Bacon  and  Essex  ex- 
tended to  Southampton  as  well.  He  was  of  Essex's  party, 
and  was  his  supporter  in  those  wayward  schemes  which  cul- 
minated in  a  treasonable  attempt  against  the  Queen's  gov- 
ernment ;  and  he  was  a  party  accused  in  the  prosecutions 
and  trials  which  followed.  Essex  was  beheaded ;  South- 
ampton, only  imprisoned  in  the  Tower ;  but  soon  after  the 
accession  of  James,  he  was  set  at  liberty.  While  yet  in 
the  Tower,  Bacon  addressed  him  the  following  letter :  — 

"  It  may  please  your  Lordship, —  I  would  have  been  very  glad 
to  have  presented  my  humble  service  to  your  Lordship  by  my 
attendance,  if  I  could  have  foreseen  that  it  should  not  have  been 
unpleasing  to  you.  And  therefore,  because  I  would  commit  no 
error,  I  chose  to  write  ;  assuring  your  Lordship  how  credible  so- 
ever it  may  seem  to  you  at  first,  yet  it  is  as  true  as  a  thing  that 
God  knoweth ;  that  this  great  change  hath  wrought  in  me  no  other 
change  towards  your  Lordship  than  this ;  that  I  may  safely  be  now 
that  which  I  was  truly  before.  And  so  craving  no  other  pardon, 
than  for  troubling  you  with  my  letter,  I  do  not  now  begin  to  be, 
but  continue  to  be, 

"  Your  Lordship's  humble  and  much  devoted." l 

On  the  accession  of  King  James,  the  friends  and  follow- 
ers of  Essex  were  taken  into  especial  favor,  while  those 
who  had  been  the  favorites  of  Elizabeth  were,  for  a  time, 
held  at  a  distance,  Bacon  among  the  rest,  though  very  soon 
afterwards  formally  appointed  to  the  place  of  King's  Coun- 
sel, the  first  that  had  ever  been,  "  under  the  degree  of  Ser- 
jeant, made  so  honoris  causa,"  says  Blackstone.2  When  the 
trials  of  Essex  and  Southampton  for  high  treason  came  on, 
in  the  previous  reign,  Bacon,  as  one  of  the  Queen's  Coun- 

1  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  115. 

2  3  Black.  Comm.,  27. 


140  ASSOCIATES. 

sel,  was  constrained  to  take  a  part  in  them,  much  against 
his  will,  and  by  the  express  command  of  the  Queen,  "  no- 
lens volens"  his  request  to  be  excused  being  peremptorily 
refused,  and  for  very  curious  reasons,  as  we  shall  see  ; 
and,  during  her  reign,  it  would  have  been  neither  judi- 
cious, nor  advantageous,  for  either  party,  that  Bacon  should 
have  interposed  in  their  behalf,  beyond  what  he  actually 
did;  and  this  they  both  well  knew.  It  is  no  matter  of 
wonder,  that  in  such  times  and  under  such  circumstances, 
private  friendships  should  be  compelled  to  go  somewhat 
under  cover,  or  even  be  converted  into  temporary  dislike, 
by  the  course  of  political  events.  But  now  that  things 
were  changed,  and  his  offers  of  service  might  be  of  some 
value,  and  without  danger  to  either  of  them,  Bacon  does 
not  hesitate  to  come  forward,  though  with  some  delicate 
saving  of  the  possibility  that  the  feelings  of  his  old  friend 
towards  him  may  have  become  estranged  under  the  trying 
events  which  had  taken  place,  with  this  assurance  of  his 
continuing  personal  regard ;  notwithstanding  that  he  had 
been  compelled  by  considerations  of  honor  and  duty  of 
higher  obligation  than  any  bond  of  private  friendship  what- 
ever, and  most  certainly  higher  than  any  obligation  to  fol- 
low a  friend  into  unwise  and  criminal  courses,  to  take  some 
share,  officially,  in  the  trial  and  condemnation  of  their 
offences.  We  know  that  while  Essex  was  under  arrest  at 
the  Lord  Keeper's  house,  in  the  autumn  of  1599,  Bacon 
incurred  the  Queen's  displeasure  on  account  of  his  persist- 
ent efforts  to  palliate  Essex's  conduct,  mitigate  her  anger, 
and  procure  his  restoration  to  her  favor,  not  then  believing 
in  any  treasonable  design  ;  and  he  succeeded  at  length,  not 
without  some  risk  to  his  own  fortunes,  in  bringing  about 
his  enlargement  in  the  spring  of  the  next  year.  And  then, 
he  addresses  a  letter  of  somewhat  like  kind  to  Essex,  who 
had  now,  for  some  two  years  past,  ceased  to  take  counsel  at 
Gray's  Inn.  The  letter,  as  given  by  Mr.  Spedding  from  an 
original  in  Bacon's  own  hand,  runs  thus :  — 


ASSOCIATES.  141 

"My  Lord,  —  No  man  can  better  expound  my  doings  than 
your  Lordship,  which  maketh  me  need  to  say  the  less.  Only  I 
humbly  pray  you  to  believe  that  I  aspire  to  the  conscience  and 
commendation  first  of  bonus  civis,  which  with  us  is  a  good  and 
true  servant  to  the  Queen,  and  next  of  bonus  vir,  that  is  an  hon- 
est man.  I  desire  your  Lordship  also  to  think  that  though  I  con- 
fess I  love  some  things  much  better  than  I  love  your  Lordship,  as 
the  Queen's  service,  her  quiet  and  contentment,  her  honour,  her 
favour,  the  good  of  my  country,  and  the  like,  yet  I  love  few  per- 
sons better  than  yourself,  both  for  gratitude's  sake,  and  for  your 
own  virtues,  which  cannot  hurt  but  by  accident  or  abuse.  Of 
which  my  good  affection  I  was  ever  and  am  ready  to  yield  testi- 
mony by  any  good  offices  but  with  such  reservations  as  yourself 
cannot  but  allow  :  for  as  I  was  ever  sorry  that  your  Lordship 
should  fly  with  waxen  wings,  doubting  Icarus'  fortune,  so  for  the 
growing  up  of  your  own  feathers,  specially  ostrich's,  or  any  other 
save  of  a  bird  of  prey,  no  man  shall  be  more  glad.  And  this  is 
the  axletree  whereupon  I  have  turned  and  shall  turn ;  which  to 
signify  to  you,  though  I  think  you  are  of  yourself  persuaded  as 
much,  is  the  cause  of  my  writing ;  and  so  I  commend  your  Lord- 
ship to  God's  goodness.  From  Gray's  Inn,  this  20th  day  of  July, 
1600.  Your  Lordship's  most  humbly, 

Fr.  Bacon."  » 

To  this  letter  Essex  returns  a  very  courteous  and  friendly 
answer,  in  which  he  says  :  — 

"  Your  profession  of  affection,  and  offer  of  good  offices,  are 
welcome  to  me.  For  answer  to  them  I  will  say  but  this  :  that  you 
have  believed  I  have  been  kind  to  you,  and  you  may  believe  that 
I  cannot  be  other,  either  upon  humour  or  mine  own  election.  I 
am  a  stranger  to  all  poetical  conceits,  or  else  I  should  say  some- 
what of  your  poetical  example."  2 

This  same  poetical  conceit  reappears  more  than  once  in 
the  plays,  as  for  instance  in  the  third  part  of  the  "  Henry 
VI.,"  thus :  — 

"Ghs.    Why  what  a  peevish  fool  was  that  of  Crete, 
That  taught  his  son  the  office  of  a  fowl  ? 

1  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  II.  190-1.  2  Ibid,  192. 


142  ASSOCIATES. 

And  yet,  for  all  his  wings,  the  fool  was  drown'd. 
K.  Hen.    I,  Daedalus;  my  poor  boy,  Icarus." 

Act  V.  Sc.  6. 

"What  answer  Southampton  returned,  does  not  appear ; 
but  considering  that  personal  relations  of  a  confidential 
and  peculiar  nature  and  of  special  interest  to  both  must 
have  subsisted  between  them,  underlying  these  merely 
political  connections  and  state  affairs,  and  that  he  had  no 
just  reason  whatever  for  being  offended  with  Bacon  for  his 
course  in  the  political  business,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
this  assurance  of  his  continuing  friendship  was  received  in 
the  same  spirit  in  which  it  was  given.  At  any  rate,  it  is 
certain  that,  after  his  liberation  (though  he  was  imprisoned 
again  for  a  short  time  in  1603,  on  account  of  a  sudden 
quarrel  and  high  words  with  Lord  Gray  in  the  Queen's 
presence,1)  he  was  very  soon  entirely  restored  to  favor, 
with  a  full  restoration  of  his  titles,  and  was  made  Warden 
of  the  New  Forest  for  life,  in  1607,2  the  same  year  in  which 
Bacon  himself  was  made  Solicitor-General.  In  1609,  he 
was  one  of  the  famous  Virginia  Company,  organized  under 
the  royal  auspices  for  the  planting  of  new  colonies  and 
making  "  new  nations,"  of  which  Sir  Francis  Bacon  was 
also  a  member;  and  in  1610,  he  became  reconciled  with 
Philip,  Earl  of  Montgomery,  who,  as  well  as  his  brother, 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  was  also  a  member  of  this  Com- 
pany. And  the  Company's  fleet,  which  sailed  from  the 
Thames,  under  Somers,  in  1609,  "met  on  its  voyage  at  sea 
those  singular  and  poetic  storms  and  trials,"  which  added 
"  the  still  vexed  Bermoothes "  to  the  British  Empire,  and 
the  "  Tempest "  to  the  world's  literature.8 

"While  this  change  in  the  state  is  taking  place,  we  find 
Bacon  making  all  reasonable  efforts  to  gain  a  foothold  with 
the  new  sovereign,  and  not  without  success  in  due  time  ; 

1  Nichols'  Prog.  K.  James  /.,  1. 198. 

2  Mem.  of  the  Court  of  James  /.,  by  Lucy  Aiken,  II.  230-243. 

3  Pers.  Hist,  of  Lord  Bacon,  by  Dixon,  197-200. 


ASSOCIATES.  143 

and  for  a  beginning  we  have  this  very  notable  letter,  ad- 
dressed by  him  to  "  Master  Davis,  then  gone  to  the  King, 
at  his  first  entrance  "  :  — 

"  Master  Davis,  —  Though  you  went  on  the  sudden,  yet  you 
could  not  go  before  you  had  spoken  with  yourself  to  the  purpose, 
which  I  will  now  write.  And  therefore  I  know  it  shall  be  alto- 
gether needless,  save  that  I  meant  to  show  you  that  I  was  not 
asleep.  Briefly,  I  commend  myself  to  your  love  and  the  well 
using  my  name ;  as  well  in  repressing  and  answering  for  me,  if 
there  be  any  biting  or  nibbling  at  it  in  that  place  ;  as  by  imprint- 
ing a  good  conceit  and  opinion  of  me,  chiefly  in  the  King  (of 
whose  favour  I  make  myself  comfortable  assurance)  ;  as  otherwise 
in  that  court.  And  not  only  so,  but  generally  to  perform  to  me 
all  the  good  offices,  which  the  variety  of  your  wit  can  suggest  to 
your  mind,  to  be  performed  to  one,  with  whose  affection  you  have 
so  great  sympathy  ;  and  in  whose  fortune  you  have  so  great  inter- 
est.    So  desiring  you  to  be  good  to  concealed  poets,  I  continue."  1 

Now,  this  could  be  no  other  than  Mr.  John  Davis  of  the 
Middle  Temple  (as  the  name  is  spelled  by  Nichols,  or 
Davies,  as  it  is  written  by  Anthony  Wood,  Chalmers,  and 
Craik),  an  Oxford  scholar,  and  the  distinguished  poet,  law- 
yer, judge,  and  statesman,  already  named  as  the  author  of 
"  Nosce  Teipsum,  or  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,"  (pub- 
lished in  1599,)  and  one  of  the  founders  of  the  metaphysi- 
cal school  of  poetry  of  that  day,  who,  having  been  expelled 
from  the  Middle  Temple  on  account  of  a  quarrel  with  Mr. 
Richard  Martin,  a  brother  wit  and  poet,  who  enjoyed  the 
esteem  of  Selden  and  Ben  Jonson,  was  restored  to  his 
chambers,  in  1601,  by  the  help  of  Lord  Chancellor  Eger- 
ton  (Ellesmere),  the  friend  of  Bacon  ;  who  went  with  Lord 
Hunsdon  to  meet  the  King  in  Scotland  on  his  first  entrance, 
and,  on  being  presented  to  the  king  as  the  author  of  that 
poem,  was  embraced  with  great  favor,  and  immediately 
■  sworn  his  man,"  in  March,  1603.  He  was  soon  after  sent 
to  Ireland  as  Solicitor-General,  where  he  became  a  judge 
l  Works  (Mont.),  VII.  114. 


144  ASSOCIATES. 

of  assize;  was  knighted  in  1608,  made  a  King's  Serjeant 
in  1612,  elected  to  Parliament  in  1620,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  being  raised  to  the  King's  Bench,  when  he  died  in 
1626.  According  to  Anthony  Wood,  he  "  was  held  in  es- 
teem by  the  noted  scholars  of  the  time,  as  W.  Cambden,  Sir 
Jo.  Harrington  the  poet,  Ben  Jonson,  facete  Hoskins,"  and 
others  ;  and  at  the  date  of  this  letter,  which  '  by  the  address' 
must  have  been  written  some  time  in  March,  1603,  it  is 
evident  that  he  was  so  intimate  with  Francis  Bacon  that  it 
was  presumed  he  would  understand  what  was  meant  when 
he  was  desired  "  to  be  good  to  concealed  poets  "  ! 1 

Of  this  same  metaphysical  school  was  the  learned  poet, 
John  Donne,  a  Cambridge  man,  who  had  been  admitted  to 
Lincoln's  Inn,  and  accompanied  the  Earl  of  Essex  on  his 
expedition  to  Cadiz  in  1596,  and  against  the  Islands  in  1597, 
and,  on  his  return  to  England,  became  the  chief  secretary 
of  Lord  Chancellor  Egerton  (Ellesmere),  and  an  inmate  of 
his  family  ;  whence  it  is  hardly  possible  he  should  not  have 
been  well  acquainted  with  Francis  Bacon.  He  afterwards 
took  orders  and  became  Preacher  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  and 
subsequently  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  ;  but  there  seems  to  be  no 
particular  mention  of  his  acquaintance  with  Bacon,  beyond 
the  statement  of  Nichols,  that  on  the  24th  of  March  1617- 
18,  the  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  (whom  Ellesmere  had  rec- 
ommended for  his  successor),  the  Earl  of  Southampton, 
Secretary  "Winwood,  and  others,  attended  St.  Paul's  to  hear 
a  sermon  from  Dr.  Donne. 

It  is  pretty  certain,  however,  that,  in  the  list  of  these 
associates,  there  were  some  other  persons,  Essex  and  South- 
ampton among  them,  who  would  have  understood  this  letter 
equally  well.  In  a  familiar  letter  addressed  to  Essex,  in 
January  1595,  while  the  question  of  the  Solicitorship  was 
still  pending,  Bacon  throws  in  a  similar  allusion,  thus  : 
"  Desiring  your  good  Lordship  nevertheless  not  to  con- 

i  Nichols'  Prog.  K.  James  L,  I.  52;  II.  198  n.  (1),  London,  1828;  Wood's 
Athen.  Oxon.,  II.  400 ;  Chalmers'  Eng.  Poets,  V.  75. 


ASSOCIATES.  145 

ceive  out  of  this  my  diligence  in  soliciting  this  matter  that 
1  am  either  much  in  appetite  or  much  in  hope.  For  as  for 
appetite,  the  waters  of  Parnassus  are  not  like  the  waters 
of  the  Spaw,  that  give  a  stomach  ;  but  rather  they  quench 
appetite  and  desires."1  What  had  Francis  Bacon  to  do 
with  the  waters  of  Parnassus  !  or  was  it  the  writer  of  these 
very  letters  that  put  into  the  mouth  of  Rosalind  in  the  play 
this  expression  also  ?  "  One  inch  of  delay  more  is  a  South- 
sea  of  discovery.  I  pr'ythee,  tell  me,  who  is  it  ?  quickly, 
and  speak  apace :  I  would  thou  could'st  stammer,  that  thou 
might'st  pour  this  concealed  man  out  of  thy  mouth,  as  wine 
comes  out  of  a  narrow-necked  bottle  ;  either  too  much  at 
once,  or  none  at  all." a  In  general,  the  use  of  the  same 
word,  in  a  single  instance,  may  be  accidental,  or  common, 
and  proves  nothing ;  but  the  peculiar  use  of  a  particular 
author  may  be  such  as  to  mark  his  individuality,  as  again 
in  these  lines :  — 

"  Kent.  Some  dear  cause 

Will  in  concealment  wrap  me  up  awhile." 

Lear,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

It  has  already  been  observed  that  there  is  a  striking 
general  resemblance  between  the  style  and  manner  of  the 
Dedication  and  Preface  to  the  Folio  and  that  of  Bacon  and 
the  plays  themselves.  The  dedicatory  epistles  to  Southamp- 
ton, prefixed  to  the  "  Venus  and  Adonis  "  and  the  "  Rape 
of  Lucrece,"  being  very  brief,  not  much  can  be  founded 
on  any  critical  comparison  of  the  styles ;  but  there  is 
here,  again,  a  striking  similitude  to  the  manner  of  Bacon. 
The  pi-op  is  a  frequent  source  of  metaphor  in  the  plays, 
and  it  is  a  favorite  word  and  figure,  as  also  the  word  pillar, 
in  the  writings  of  Bacon.  In  one  of  his  earlier  works,  he 
says :  "  I  remember  in  a  chamber  in  Cambridge,  that  was 
something  ruinous,  a  pillar  of  iron  was  erected  for  a 
prop ; " 8  and   this   same   pillar   and  prop  seem   to  have 

1  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  I.  345. 

2  As  You  Like  It,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 
«  Works  (Mont.),  XV.  232. 

10 


146  ASSOCIATES. 

lived  in  his  imagination.  It  appears  in  the  epistle  dedica- 
tory of  the  "  Venus  and  Adonis,"  thus :  "  I  know  not  how 
the  world  will  censure  me  for  choosing  so  strong  a  prop  to 
support  so  weak  a  hurthen."  In  a  letter  to  the  King,  we 
find  this  expression  :  "  For  in  that  other  poor  prop  of  my 
estate,  which  is  the  farming  of  the  petty  writs ; "  so,  in 
Shakespeare,  we  have  like  expressions  :  — 

"Sweet  Duke  of  York,  our  prop  to  lean  upon." — 3  Henry  VI. 

"  Two  props  of  virtue  for  a  Christian."  — Richard  III.,  Act  II.  Sc.  7. 

And  again,  — 

"  Gob.  Many,  God  forbid !  the  boy  was  the  very  staff  of  my  age,  my 
very  prop. 

Laun.  [Aside.]  Do  I  look  like  a  cudgel,  or  a  hovel-post,  a  staff,  or  a 
prop  ?  "  —  Merchant  of  Venice,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

And  again,  — 

"  You  take  my  house  when  you  do  take  the  prop 
That  doth  sustain  my  house."  —  Ibid.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

And  speaking  of  those  "  illustrative  examples  "  and  that 
"  true  art,"  in  which  there  was  to  be  some  departure  from 
"the  customary  fashion,"  Bacon  remarks  in  the  Scaling 
Ladder,  that  "  the  industry  and  happiness  of  man "  are 
not  to  be  "  indissolubly  bound,  as  it  were,  to  a  single  pil- 
lar " ;  and  in  his  "  Observations  on  a  Libel,"  he  uses  the 
expression,  "  their  ancient  pillar  of  lying  wonders  being  de- 
cayed." And  this  same  pillar  is  a  frequent  figure  in  Shake- 
speare, as  thus :  — 

"  And  call  them  pillars  that  will  stand  to  us." 

3  Henry  VI.,  Act  II.  Sc.  5. 
And  again,  — 

"  I  charge  you  by  the  law, 
Whereof  you  are  a  well-deserving  pillar, 
Proceed  to  judgment." 

Merchant  of  Venice,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

By  itself  alone,  this  use  of  a  single  word,  or  figure,  might 
very  well  be  deemed  a  trivial  coincidence,  or  the  mere 
result  of  common  use ;  but  when  it  is  found  that  this  is  a 


ASSOCIATES.  147 

favorite  metaphor  in  both,  and  only  one  of  innumerable 
similitudes  of  like  or  even  much  stronger  kind  in  these 
writings,  it  may  come  to  have  some  significance.  In  the 
Dedication  to  the  "  Rape  of  Lucrece,"  the  writer  says : 
"  What  I  have  done  is  yours,  what  I  have  to  do  is  yours ; 
being  part  in  all  I  have  devoted  yours ; "  —  a  declaration 
which  is  at  least  consistent  enough  with  the  plan  of  the 
supposed  arrangement. 


CHAPTER  HI. 

FURTHER  PROOFS. 

"  Now  for  the  Athenian  question ;  you  discourse  well,  Quid  igitur  agendum  est  ? 
I  will  shoot  my  fool's  bolt,  since  you  will  have  it  so."  —  Bacon  to  Essex  (1598). 

uOrl.    You  are  the  better  at  proTerbs,  by  how  much — A  fool's  bolt  is  soon 
Shot."  —  Henry  V.,  Act  III.  Sc.  7,  (1599). 

§    1.  PARALLEL    WORKS. 

Francis  Bacon  was  engaged,  during  the  same  period 
and  afterwards,  in  writing  and  publishing  works  in  prose 
on  kindred  and  parallel  subjects,  as  for  instance,  in  partic- 
ular, his  Masques,  the  Essays,  the  Fable  of  Cupid,  the 
Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  the  New  Atlantis,  the  Happy 
Memor}7,  the  Discourse  in  Praise  of  the  Queen,  the  Char- 
acters of  Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar,  the  Histories  of 
Henry  VII.  and  Henry  VIII.,  the  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing, his  Speeches,  and  the  Great  Instauration  of  Science 
and  Philosophy  ;  indeed,  the  whole  of  his  works  may  come 
into  the  comparison,  not  excepting  the  Novum  Organum 
itself.  He  was  sounding  all  the  depths  and  hidden  mys- 
teries of  Nature,  threading  the  labyrinth  of  all  philosophy, 
and  scaling  with  ladders  the  heights  of  the  empyrean.  A 
critical  comparison  of  these  writings  with  the  plays  and 
poems  in  question,  it  is  firmly  believed,  will  be  sufficient  to 
satisfy  any  reasonable  mind,  at  all  competent  to  judge  of 
such  a  matter,  not  merely  of  that  general  resemblance 
which  has  been  long  ago  frequently  observed,  and  always 
attributed  to  the  common  usage  and  style  of  that  age,  but 
of  such  close  similitudes  in  the  thought,  style,  and  diction 
as  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  of  the  absolute  identity  of  the 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  149 

authorship.  The  Essays,  the  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  the 
Letters,  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  the  Henry  VIL,  and 
the  New  Atlantis,  especially,  abound  in  parallel  topics, 
similar  peculiarities  of  idea,  like  diction,  and  identical  ex- 
pressions; and  the  same  solidity,  brevity,  and  beauty  of 
style  and  manner,  and  a  like  power  of  imagination,  pervades 
them  all.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  doubt,  for  instance,  that 
the  Essay  on  Masques  and  Triumphs  came  from  the  same 
mind  as  Hamlet's  instructions  to  the  players,  nor  that  the 
u  Winter's  Tale  "  came  from  the  same  source  as  the  Essay 
on  Gardens. 

The  "  New  Atlantis  "  was  written  as  one  of  his  feigned 
histories,  or  natural  stories,  or  types  and  models,  and  with 
a  main  purpose  of  illustrating  the  new  doctrines  and  meth- 
ods, which  the  author  was  endeavoring  to  institute,  and  to 
present,  as  it  were,  a  model  of  his  idea  of  a  College  of 
the  Universal  Science.  It  is  said  to  have  given  origin  to 
the  Royal  Society  of  London,  which  is,  however,  an  insti- 
tution of  somewhat  different  kind  and  scope. 

On  a  general  comparison  of  this  work  with  the  "  Tem- 
pest," the  similitude  of  the  one  to  the  other,  in  many  points 
of  the  story,  the  leading  ideas,  the  scene  and  conception  of 
the  whole,  is  very  evident ;  and  some  parts  of  it  may  be 
traced  in  the  "  Timon  of  Athens."  Like  the  island  of  At- 
lantis, Prospero's  isle  is  situated  afar  off  in  the  midst  of 
the  ocean,  somewhere  near  "  the  still  vex'd  Bermoothes," 
but  hitherto  remote  from  all  visitation  of  civilized  men. 
Prospero,  in  his  "  full  poor  cell,"  where  all  the  mysteries 
of  science  and  the  secrets  of  Nature  are  unfolded  to  him, 
attended  by  his  master-spirit,  Ariel,  the  genius  of  knowl- 
edge, is  but  another  Solomon,  with  "an  aspect  as  if 
he  pitied  men,"  in  his  House  or  College  of  the  Six  Days 
Works,  in  the  island  of  Atlantis.  Prospero,  like  Democ- 
ritus  and  Anaxagoras,  seems  to  have  believed  that  "  the 
truth  of  nature  lieth  hid  in  certain  deep  mines  and  caves," l 
i  Adv.  of  Learning,  Works  (Mont.),  II.  131. 


150  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

and  his  oracles,  like  those  delivered  to  the  Indian  Prince 
in  the  Masque,  came  out  of  "  one  of  the  holiest  vaults  " ; * 
as  Polonius  says,  in  the  play  :  — 

"  If  circumstances  lead  me,  I  will  find 
Where  truth  is  hid,  though  it  were  hid  indeed 
Within  the  centre."  — Hamlet,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

Bacon  frequently  alludes  to  that  "  feigned  supposition 
that  Plato  maketh  of  the  cave."  2  Indeed,  the  cave,  as  we 
know,  was  a  traditional  source  of  the  divinest  wisdom  with 
the  ancient  philosophers  and  poets.  Plato  takes  his  disci- 
ple into  a  dark  cave,  in  order  to  bring  to  light  some  of  the 
abstrusest  doctrines  and  innermost  secrets  of  his  divine 
philosophy.  Tasso's  learned  magician,  Ubaldo,  who  was 
born  a  Pagan,  but  was  regenerated  by  divine  grace, 
also  had  his  secret  seat  in  a  hidden  cave,  wherein  he  was 
yet  not  far  from  heaven ;  nor  were  his  wonderful  works 
done  in  virtue  of  infernal  spirits,  but  of  the  study  of 
Nature :  — 

"  Ma  spiando  men  vo  da  lor  vestigi, 
Qual  in  se  virtu  cell  o  l'erba  o  '1  fonte: 
E  gli  altri  arcani  di  Natura  ignoti 
Contemplo,  e  delle  stelle  i  varii  moti. 

XLIII.  Perocche  no  ognor  lunge  dal'  cielo 
Tra  sotterranei  chiostri  e  la  mia  stanza." 

Giur.  Lib.  XIV.  42-3. 

In  the  conception  of  Caliban,  the  author  clearly  intends 
to  shadow  forth  his  views  of  the  savage  island  races,  ethno- 
logically  considered,  and  he  discloses  the  idea,  which  was 
doubtless  Bacon's  opinion,  as  it  was  that  of  Plato,  that 
these  savages  were  indigenous  to  the  soil  on  which  they 
were  found,  and  that  the  races  of  men,  like  the  rest  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  were  created  in  distinct  centres,  or  had  a 
separate  development,  on  different  continents,  and  on  a  grad- 
uated scale  of  ascending  types  of  form,  rising  by  degrees, 

i  Masque ;  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life,  I.  388. 
2  Adv.  of  Learning,  Bk.  II. 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  151 

in  the  course  of  "  a  length  and  infinity  of  time," 1  from  apes 
to  savages,  and  from  savages  to  the  higher  types  of  civil- 
ized men  ;  as  the  science  of  paleontology  now  more  clearly 
demonstrates,  according  to  the  principles  of  zoology,  and 
according  to  the  Transcendental  Architectonic  of  the  Divine 
Idea ;  —  of  all  which  he  had  been  able  to  obtain  something 
more  than  a  mere  hint  even  from  Plato.  And  so  he  writes 
down  Caliban 

"A  devil,  a  born  devil,  on  whose  nature 
Nurture  can  never  stick." —  Tempest,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

The  "  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  "  is  a  work  somewhat 
like  in  character,  in  which  the  writer  evidently  means  to 
exhibit,  not  merely  the  invisible  spirit  of  Nature  under 
various  forms  of  fable,  but  also  the  first  dawnings  of  a 
human  intelligence,  even  in  the  lower  animals,  and  the 
effect  of  Orpheus'  music  and  "  universal  philosophy  "  upon 
them,  when  "  they  all  stood  about  him  gently  and  sociably, 
as  in  a  theatre,  listening  only  to  the  concords  of  his  lyre," 
which  could  "  draw  the  wild  beasts  and  the  woods  " ;  —  for 
"Orpheus  himself,  —  a  man  admirable  and  truly  divine, 
who  being  master  of  all  harmony,  subdued  and  drew  all 
things  after  him  by  sweet  and  gentle  measures,  —  may  pass 
by  an  easy  metaphor  for  philosophy  personified  " ; 2  —  and 
also  the  universal  nature  of  love,  after  the  accounts  which 
Bacon  says  are  "given  by  the  poets  of  Cupid  or  Love," 
which  "  are  not  properly  applicable  to  the  same  person," 
the  ancient  Cupid  being  different  from  the  younger  Cupid, 
the  son  of  Venus ;  "  yet  the  discrepancy  is  such  that  one 
may  see  where  the  confusion  is  and  where  the  similitude, 
and  reject  the  one  and  receive  the  other." 8  And  so  Titania 
says  to  "  Bottom  with  an  ass'  head,"  — 

" I  '11  give  thee  fairies  to  attend  on  thee; 
And  they  shall  fetch  thee  jewels  from  the  deep, 
And  sing  while  thou  on  pressed  flowers  doth  sleep : 

1  Plato.         2  Wisd.  of  the  Anc.  (Orpheus),  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  110. 
»  Ibid.  (Cupid),  122. 


152  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

And  I  will  purge  thy  mortal  grossness  so, 

That  thou  shalt  like  an  airy  spirit  go."  — Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

And  again : 

uTit.    What,  wilt  thou  hear  some  music,  sweet  love  ? 

Bot.    I  have  a  reasonably  good  ear  in  music :  let  us  have  the 
tongs  and  bones. 

Tit.    My  Oberon !  what  visions  have  I  seen ! 
Methought  I  was  enamour' d  of  an  ass. 

Ober.     There  lies  your  love. 

Tit.  How  came  these  things  to  pass  ? 

O,  how  mine  eyes  do  loath  his  visage  now ! 

Ober.    Silence,  a  while.  —  Robin,  take  off  his  head. 
Titania,  music  call ;  and  strike  more  dead 
Than  common  sleep,  of  all  these  five,  the  sense. 

Tit.    Music,  ho !  music !  such  as  charmeth  sleep."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  For,"  continues  Bacon,  "  as  the  works  of  wisdom  surpass 
in  dignity  and  power  the  works  of  strength,  so  the  labours 

of  Orpheus  surpass  the  labours  of  Hercules And 

all  this  went  on  for  some  time  with  happy  success  and  great 
admiration  ;  till  at  last  certain  Thracian  women,  under  the 
stimulation  and  excitement  of  Bacchus,  came  where  he 
was ;  and  first  they  blew  such  a  hoarse  and  hideous  blast 
upon  a  horn,  that  the  sound  of  his  music  could  no  longer 
be  heard  for  the  din :  whereupon  the  charm  being  broken 
that  had  been  the  bond  of  that  order  and  good-fellowship, 
confusion  began  again ;  the  beasts  returned  each  to  his 
several  nature  and  preyed  one  upon  the  other  as  before; 
the  stones  and  woods  stayed  no  longer  in  their  places :  while 
Orpheus  himself  was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  women  in  their 
fury,  and  his  limbs  scattered  about  the  fields:  at  whose 
death,  Helicon  (river  sacred  to  the  Muses)  in  grief  and 
indignation  buried  his  waters  under  the  earth,  to  reappear 
elsewhere." 1  With  which  compare  these  allusions  in  the 
play,2  in  which  Hercules,  Bacchus,  Orpheus,  and  the  Thra- 
cian women  crop  out  in  the  same  order,  thus :  — 

i  Wild,  of  the  Anc.  (Orpheus),  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  111. 
■  The  italics  are  those  of  the  play. 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  153 

"Phil.    There  is  a  brief,  how  many  sports  are  ripe ; 
Make  choice  of  which  your  highness  will  see  first. 

[Giving  a  paper. 

Lys.    [Reads.]    '  The  battle  with  the  Centaurs,  to  be  sung 
By  an  Athenian  eunuch  to  the  harp.' 

Thes.    We  '11  none  of  that:  that  have  I  told  my  love, 
In  glory  of  my  kinsman  Hercules. 

Lys.    '  The  riot  of  the  tipsy  Bacchanals, 
Tearing  the  Thracian  singer  in  their  rage.' 

Thes.    That  is  an  old  device;  and  it  was  play'd 
When  I  from  Thebes  came  last  a  conqueror. 

Lys.     '  The  thrice  three  Muses  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  learning,  late  deceas'd  in  beggary.' 

Thes.    That  is  some  satire,  keen  and  critical, 
Not  sorting  with  a  nuptial  ceremony. 

Lys.    lA  tedious  brief  scene  of  young  Pyramus, 
And  his  love  Thisbe :  very  tragical  mirth.' 

Thes.     Merry  and  tragical !  Tedious  and  brief! 
That  is,  hot  ice,  and  wondrous  strange  snow. 
How  shall  we  find  the  concord  of  this  discord?  "  — Act  V.  8c.  1. 

How  shall  we  discover  "  where  the  confusion  is  and  where 
the  similitude  " ! 

The  younger  Cupid,  however,  according  to  Bacon,  "  ap- 
plied the  appetite  to  an  individual  object.  From  Venus, 
therefore,  comes  the  general  disposition,  from  Cupid  the 
more  exact  sympathy.  Now  the  general  disposition  depends 
upon  causes  near  at  hand,  the  particular  sympathy  upon 
principles  more  deep  and  fatal,  and  as  if  derived  from  that 
ancient  Cupid,  who  is  the  source  of  all  exquisite  sympathy." l 
And  so,  we  have  it  in  the  play,  thus :  — 

"Lys.     [Hermia],  for  aught  that  ever  I  could  read, 
Could  ever  hear  by  tale  or  history, 
The  course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth ; 
But,  either  it  was  different  in  blood,  — 

Her.     O  cross !  too  high  to  be  enthrall'd  to  low ! 

Lys.    Or  else  misgraffed,  in  respect  of  years ;  — 

Her.    0  spite!  too  old  to  be  engaged  to  young! 

Lys.     Or  else  it  stood  upon  the  choice  of  merit :  — 

Her.    0  Hell !  to  choose  love  by  another's  eyes ! 

Lys.    Or,  if  there  were  a  sympathy  in  choice, 
War,  death,  or  sickness  did  lay  siege  to  it, 

i  Wisd.  of  the  Anc.  (Cupid),  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  125. 


154  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

Making  it  momentary  as  a  sound, 
Swift  as  a  shadow,  short  as  any  dream, 
Brief  as  the  lightning  in  the  collied  night, 
That,  in  a  spleen,  unfolds  both  heaven  and  earth, 
And  ere  a  man  hath  power  to  say,  — '  Behold ! ' 
The  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up: 
So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confusion. 

Her.    If,  then,  true  lovers  have  been  ever  crossed, 
It  stands  as  an  edict  in  destiny."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Wherein  we  have  a  repetition  of  this  same  confusion, 
this  sympathy,  and  these  principles  more  deep  and  fatal. 
And  for  this  play,  the  scene  shall  be  "  Athens ;  and  a  wood 
not  far  from  it."  It  is  very  much  such  a  scene  as  that  of 
"  the  Forest  of  Arden,"  in  the  "As  You  Like  It,"  or  that 
of  the  "  Timon,"  which  was  "Athens  ;  and  the  woods  adjoin- 
ing"; but  the  object,  in  this  play,  is  "the  culture  and  cure 
of  the  mind,"  in  respect  of  this  matter  of  love,  and  not 
now  "  in  points  of  fortune."  And  the  subject  compasses 
the  entire  scale  of  being,  and  stretches,  in  like  manner  as  in 
the  "  Timon,"  from  "  the  woodlands,  as  it  were,  of  nature," 
even  into  the  commonwealth  of  Athens,  and  endeavors  "  to 
climb  by  regular  succession  to  the  height  of  things,  like  so 
many  tops  of  mountains." 1  At  least,  the  writer  will  him- 
self view  the  subject  from  these  tops  and  these  "uppermost 
elevations  of  nature,  where  his  station  will  be  serene  "  and 
his  "  prospects  delightful,"  as  from  that  cliff  of  Plato,  which, 
says  Bacon,  was  "  raised  above  the  confusion  of  things : "  — 

"We  will,  fair  Queen,  up  to  the  mountain's  top, 
And  mark  the  musical  confusion 
Of  hounds  and  echo  in  conjunction. 

Hip I  never  heard 

So  musical  a  discord,  such  sweet  thunder."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

But  the  scene  is,  for  the  most  part,  in  "a  wood  near 
Athens,"  where  fairies  and  spirits  "  do  wander  everywhere, 

for 

"  Our  intent 
Was  to  be  gone  from  Athens,  where  we  might 

1  Scaling-ladder. 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  155 

Without  the  peril  of  the  Athenian  law  — 

Ege.    Enough,  enough !  my  lord,  you  have  enough. 
I  beg  the  law,  the  law,  upon  his  head." —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

And  we  are  now  to  be  taken  into  the  very  region  of  this 

Love,  which  is  "  the  appetite  or  instinct  of  primal  matter," 

says  Bacon,  "  or,  to  speak  more  plainly,  the  natural  motion  of 

the  atom;   which  is  indeed  the  original  and  unique  force 

that  constitutes  and  fashions  all  things  out  of  matter ; "  as 

in  the  imagery  of  these  lines  of  the  "As  You  Like  It," 

thus :  — 

uPhebe.    .    .    .    Thou  tell'st  me  there  is  murther  in  my  eye; 
'Tis  pretty,  sure,  and  very  probable, 
That  eyes,  that  are  the  frail'st  and  softest  things, 
Who  shut  their  coward  gates  on  atomies, 
Should  be  called  tyrants,  butchers,  murtherers!  "  —  Act  III.  8c.  5. 

"  For,"  continues  the  philosopher,  "  the  summary  law  of 
nature,  that  impulse  of  desire  impressed  by  God  upon 
the  primary  particles  of  matter  which  makes  them  come 
together,  and  which  by  repetition  and  multiplication  pro- 
duces all  the  variety  of  nature,  is  a  thing  which  mortal 
thought  may  glance  at,  but  can  hardly  take  in  " : 1  — 

"  Tit.    .    .    .    Fairies,  be  gone,  and  be  all  ways  away.8 
So  doth  the  woodbine  the  sweet  honeysuckle 
Gently  entwist ;  the  female  ivy  so 
Enrings  the  barky  fingers  of  the  elm."  —  Act  IV.  8c.  1. 

And  again,  in  the  "  As  You  Like  It " :  — 

"Ros.  There's  a  girl  goes  before  the  priest:  and,  certainly,  a  woman's 
thought  runs  before  her  actions. 

Orl.    So  do  all  thoughts;  they  are  wing'd."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

Even  the  animals  partake  of  the  universal  enchantment 

in  this  play  :  — 

"  When  in  that  moment  (so  if  came  to  pass), 
Titania  wak'd,  and  straightway  lov'd  an  ass."  —  Act  III.  8c.  2. 

i  Wisd.  of  the  Anc.  (Cupid),  Works  (Boston),  Xm.  123. 

2  Mr.  White  reads, "  be  a  while  away,"  adopting  one  of  Collier's  forgeries, 
which  is  too  tame:  it  was  of  the  very  nature  of  these  fairies,  representing 
the  spirit  of  universal  Nature,  to  be  "  all  ways  away." 


156  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

But,  says  the  philosopher  again,  "  the  fable  relates  to  the 
cradle  and  infancy  of  nature,  and  pierces  deep,"  and  we 
shall  have  a  play,  now,  which  shall  be 

"  As  the  remembrance  of  an  idle  gawd, 
Which  in  my  childhood  I  did  dote  upon  " ;  — 

and  things 

"  More  strange  than  true:  I  never  may  believe 
These  antique  fables,  nor  these  fairy  toys. 
Lovers  and  madmen  have  such  seething  brains, 
Such  shaping  fantasies,  that  apprehend 
More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends. 
The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet, 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact " :  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

like  a  child ;  for  Cupid  *  is  described  with  great  elegance 
as  a  little  child,  and  a  child  forever ;  for  things  compounded 
are  larger  and  are  affected  by  age ;  whereas  the  primary 
seeds  of  things,  or  atoms,  are  minute,  and  remain  in  per- 
Detual  infancy."  — * 

"  Thes.    Love,  therefore,  and  tongue-tied  simplicity 
In  least  speak  most,  to  my  capacity."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  therefore,  we  will  have  here  a  dumb  show  of  "  Wall 
and  Moonshine,"  and  a  mere  piece  of  child's  play :  — 

"ffip.    This  is  the  silliest  stuff  that  ever  I  heard. 
Thes.    The  best  in  this  kind  are  but  shadows;  and  the  worse  are  no 
•worse,  if  imagination  amend  them."  — Act  V.  Sc.  1. 


"Dem.    These  things  seem  small,  and  undistinguishable, 
Like  far-off  mountains  turned  into  clouds. 

Her.    Methinks  I  see  things  with  parted  eye, 
When  every  thing  seems  double. 

Hel.  So  methinks : 

And  I  have  found  Demetrius,  like  a  jewel,         , 
Mine  own,  and  not  mine  own. 

Dem.  It  seems  to  me 

That  yet  we  sleep,  we  dream."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

Very  like;  but,  nevertheless,  "all  compounds  (to  one 
that  considers  them  rightly)  are  masked  and  clothed 

l  Wi$d.ofthe  Anc.  (Cupid),  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  124. 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  157 

The  blindness,  likewise,  of  Cupid,  has  an  allegorical  mean- 
ing full  of  wisdom.  For  it  seems  that  this  Cupid,  whatever 
he  be,  has  very  little  providence  ;  but  directs  his  course, 
like  a  blind  man  groping,  by  whatever  he  finds  nearest; 
which  makes  the  supreme  divine  Providence  all  the  more 
to  be  admired,  as  that  which  contrives  out  of  subjects  pecu- 
liarly empty  and  destitute  of  providence,  and  as  it  were 
blind,  to  educe  by  a  fatal  and  necessary  law  all  the  order 
and  beauty  of  the  universe  "  :* 

"Hel.    Things  base  and  vile,  holding  no  quantity, 
Love  can  transpose  to  form  and  dignity : 
Love  looks  not  with  the  eyes,  but  with  the  mind, 
And  therefore  is  wing'd  Cupid  painted  blind : 
Nor  hath  Love's  mind  of  any  judgment  taste; 
Wings,  and  no  eyes,  figure  unheedy  haste : 
And  therefore  is  Love  said  to  be  a  child, 
Because  iu  choice  he  often  is  beguil'd. 
As  waggish  boys  in  game  themselves  forswear, 
So  the  boy  Love  is  perjur'd  everywhere." — Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

And, 

"  When  they  next  wake,  all  this  derision 
Shall  seem  a  dream  and  fruitless  vision ; 
And  back  to  Athens  shall  the  lovers  wend, 
With  league,  whose  date  till  death  shall  never  end." 

Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  the  whole  thing, 

"  Such  tricks  hath  strong  imagination," 
shall  pierce  so  deep,  that  "it  shall  be  called  Bottom's 
dream,  because  it  hath  no  bottom  " ;  for  this  Cupid  is, "  next 
to  God,  the  cause  of  causes  —  itself  without  a  cause."2 
And  such  certainly  is  the  judgment  of  the  sacred  philos- 
opher, when  he  says,  "  He  hath  made  all  things  beautiful 
according  to  their  seasons ;  also  he  hath  submitted  the 
world  to  man's  inquiry,  yet  so  that  men  cannot  find  out  the 
work  which  God  worketh  from  the  beginning  to  the  end."  8 
And  again,  we  have  a  touch  of  this  same  deep-sounding 
philosophy,  in  the  "  As  You  Like  It,"  thus :  — 

1  Wisd.  of  the  Anc.  (Cupid),  125.  «  Ibid.  (Cupid),  123. 

8  Essay  of  the  Vicissitude  of  Things. 


158  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

"Ros.  O  coz,  coz,  coz,  my  pretty  little  coz,  that  thou  didst  know  how 
many  fathom  deep  I  am  in  love !  But  it  cannot  be  sounded ;  my  affection 
hath  an  unknown  bottom,  like  the  Bay  of  Portugal. 

Cel.    Or  rather,  bottomless;  that  as  you  pour  affection  in,  it  runs  out. 

Ros.  No;  that  same  wicked  bastard  of  Venus,  that  was  begot,  of  thought, 
conceived  of  spleen,  and  born  of  madness;  that  blind  rascally  boy,  that 
abuses  every  one's  eyes,  because  his  own  are  out,  let  him  be  judge  how  deep 
I  am  in  love."  —  Act  I V.  Sc.  1. 

The  object  and  purpose  of  these  plays  may  receive  some 
further  illustration  from  the  following  account  of  Orpheus' 
Theatre,  where,  says  Bacon, "  all  beasts  and  birds  assembled, 
and  forgetting  their  several  appetites,  some  of  prey,  some 
of  game,  some  of  quarrel,  stood  all  sociably  together,  listen- 
ing to  the  airs  and  accords  of  the  harp ;  the  sound  whereof 
no  sooner  ceased,  or  was  drowned  by  some  louder  noise, 
but  every  heart  returned  to  his  own  nature :  wherein  is 
aptly  described  the  nature  and  condition  of  men,  who  are 
full  of  savage  and  unreclaimed  desires  of  profit,  of  lust,  of 
revenge ;  which  as  long  as  they  give  ear  to  precepts,  to 
laws,  to  religion,  sweetly  touched  with  eloquence  and  per- 
suasion of  books,  of  sermons,  of  harangues,  so  long  is 
society  and  peace  maintained ;  but  if  these  instruments  be 
silent,  or  that  sedition  and  tumult  make  them  not  audible, 
all  things  dissolve  into  anarchy  and  confusion."  * 

This  last  expression  may  call  to  mind  the  "  Tempest,"  in 
which  all  things  were  to  dissolve  and  "leave  not  a  rack 
behind,"  and  "  deeper  than  did  ever  plummet  sound,"  he 
would  drown  his  book ;  which  word  drown,  having  got  much 
into  use  with  the  writer,  will  drop  out  occasionally  even  in 
much  graver  works :  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Morton,  who  proposed  a  law  against  conspiring  the 
death  of  a  King's  Counsellor,  as  "  drowning  the  envy  of 
it  in  a  general  law." 2 

And  this  same  teaching,  drawn  from  "  Orpheus'  Theatre,'' 
reappears  more  largely  in  the  "Merchant  of  Venice," 
thus :  — 

1  Adv.  of  Learn.;  Works  (Mont.),  II.  177. 

3  History  of  Henry  VII. ;   Works  (Boston),  XI.  131. 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  159 

"  Lor.    How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank ! 
Here  we  will  sit,  and  let  the  sounds  of  music 
Creep  in  our  ears :  soft  stillness  and  the  night 
Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony. 
Sit,  Jessica :  look,  how  the  floor  of  Heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold; 
There  's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold'st 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubins: 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls ; 
But,  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it. 

Enter  Musicians. 

Come,  ho !  and  wake  Diana  with  a  hymn : 

"With  sweetest  touches  pierce  your  mistress'  ear, 

And  draw  her  home  with  music.  [Music. 

Jess.    I  am  never  merry  when  I  hear  sweet  music. 

Lor.    The  reason  is,  your  spirits  are  attentive : 
For  do  but  note  a  wild  and  wanton  herd, 
Or  race  of  youthful  and  unhandled  colts, 
Fetching  mad  bounds,  bellowing,  and  neighing  loud, 
Which  is  the  hot  condition  of  their  blood ; 
If  they  but  hear,  perchance,  a  trumpet  sound, 
Or  any  air  of  music  touch  their  ears, 
You  shall  perceive  them  make  a  mutual  stand. 
Their  savage  eyes  turn'd  to  a  modest  gaze 
By  the  sweet  power  of  music :  therefore  the  poet 
Did  feign  that  Orpheus  drew  trees,  stones,  and  floods; 
Since  nought  so  stockish,  hard,  and  full  of  rage, 
But  music  for  the  time  doth  change  his  nature. 
The  man  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  moved  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils: 
The  motions  of  his  spirit  are  dull  as  night, 
And  his  affections  dark  as  Erebus. 
Let  no  such  man  be  trusted.  —  Mark  the  music."  —  Act  V.  8c.  1. 

Here,  we  have  not  only  the  same  general  scope  of  thought, 
ideas,  and  imagery,  but  certain  particular  and  unmistakable 
earmarks  by  which  we  may  know  the  identity  of  the  writer ; 
as  for  instance,  in  the  use  of  the  phrases  "  sweet  power  of 
music  "  and  "  concord  of  sweet  sounds,"  "  sweetly  touched  " 
and  ■  sweetest  touches,"  the  words  "  savage  "  and  "  silent," 
the  sound  of  "  a  trumpet "  heard  and  a  "  hideous  blast  upon 


160  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

a  horn,"  the  "  motions  of  his  spirit "  and  "  the  natural  mo- 
tion of  the  atom,"  and  the  discourse  running  on  "  the 
affections  " ;  and  in  the  prose,  when  the  music  ceases,  every 
heart  returns  "  to  his  own  nature " ;  but  in  the  poetry, 
"  music  for  the  time  doth  change  his  nature."  And  indeed 
the  careful  reader,  who  is  familiar  with  his  style  and  manner 
and  diction,  cannot  fail  to  recognize  him  in  every  line. 

Similar  ideas  touching  the  history  of  the  human  race 
and  the  order  of  divine  providence  in  the  creation  are  con- 
tained elsewhere  in  the  writings  of  Bacon.  Concerning  the 
countries  of  the  New  World,  then  lately  discovered,  he 
says,  "the  great  winding-sheets  that  bury  all  things  in 
oblivion  are  two :  deluges  and  earthquakes."  *  He  thought 
it  probable  that  the  people  of  the  West  Indies  were  "a 
newer  and  younger  people  than  the  people  of  the  old 
world";  and  he  says,  "it  is  much  more  likely  that  the 
destruction  that  hath  heretofore  been  there  was  not  by 
earthquakes  (as  the  Egyptian  priest  told  Solon  concerning 
the  Island  of  Atlantis,  that  it  was  swallowed  by  an  earth- 
quake), but  rather  that  it  was  desolated  by  a  particular 

deluge Their  Andes,  likewise,  or  mountains,  are 

far  higher  than  those  with  us ;  whereby  it  seems  that  the 
remnants  of  generation  of  men  ['  reliquiae  sttrpis  hominum '] 
were  in  such  a  particular  deluge  saved":2 

"Gon.  If  in  Naples 

I  should  report  this  now,  would  they  believe  me  ? 
If  I  should  sa)r,  I  saw  such  islanders, 
(For  certes,  these  are  people  of  the  island) 
Who,  though  they  are  of  monstrous  shape,  yet,  note, 
Their  manners  are  more  gentle,  kind,  than  of 
Our  human  generation  you  shall  find 
Many,  nay.  almost  any. 

Pros.     [Aside.]  Honest  lord, 

Thou  hast  said  well ;  for  some  of  you  there  present, 
Are  worse  than  devils."  —  Tempest,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

He  thus  distinctly  intimates  an  opinion  that  the  races  of 

1  Essay  of  the  Vicissitude  of  Things. 

2  Essays,  Works  (Mont.),  I.  187-9;   Works  (Boston),  XII.  274. 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  161 

mankind,  on  different  continents,  had  been  subjected  in 
each  to  a  distinct  series  of  geological  changes  in  the  surface 
of  the  globe,  implying  that  the  history  of  their  origin  must 
be  carried  so  far  back  into  "  the  dark  backward  and  abysm  of 
time"  as  to  exhaust  the  antiquity  of  all  historical,  archaeo- 
logical or  ethnological  data,  reaching  far  beyond  the  remo- 
test tradition  that  has  floated  down  on  the  stream  of  human 
memory  even  into  purely  geological  time,  and  into  the  very 
"winding-sheets  of  oblivion,"  and  that  river  of  Lethe, 
which,  he  says,  "  runneth  as  well  above  ground  as  below  " ; 
an  opinion  that  is  fully  confirmed  by  the  later  and  more 
certain  scientific  demonstrations.  "  But,"  he  continues, 
"  in  the  other  two  destructions,  by  deluge  and  earthquake, 
it  is  further  to  be  noted,  that  the  remnant  of  people  which 
happen  to  be  reserved,  are  commonly  ignorant  and  moun- 
tainous people,  that  can  give  no  account  of  the  time  past ; 
so  that  the  oblivion  is  all  one  as  if  none  had  been 
left":  — 

"  Gon.  When  we  were  boys, 

Who  would  believe  that  there  were  mountaineers 
Dew-lapp'd  like  bulls,  whose  throats  had  hanging  at  'em 
Wallets  of  flesh  ?  or  that  there  were  such  men, 
Whose  heads  stood  in  their  breasts  ?  which  now  we  find 
Each  putter-out  on  five  for  one  will  bring  us 
Good  warrant  of."  —  Tempest,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

In  these  opinions  we  may  discover  traces,  also,  of  Plato's 
account  of  the  origin  of  the  human  race,  which  he  con- 
ceived to  be  "  from  a  length  and  infinity  of  time,  and  the 
mutations  in  it,"  and  that  there  had  been  "  frequent  destruc- 
tions of  the  human  race  through  deluges  and  diseases  and 
many  other  events,  in  which  some  small  family  of  mankind 
was  left "  ;  and  "  that  those  who  then  escaped  the  destruc- 
tion, were  nearly  some  hill-shepherds,  preserved  on  the 
tops  (of  mountains)  like  some  slight  fire  preserving  (care- 
less) of  the  human  race  " ; '  that  is,  saved  not  so  much  by 
human  care  as  by  the  divine  providence ;  an  opinion,  by 

i  Laws,  Book  III. ;   Works  of  Plato  (Bohn),  V.  78. 
11 


162  PARALLEL  WORKS. 

the  way,  that  conies  much  nearer  the  truth  of  the  matter 
than  most  modern  inquiry. 

So  Bacon  seems  to  have  believed  that  some  time  far 
back  in  the  series  of  these  particular  deluges,  one  con- 
tinent or  island  may  have  been  peopled  from  another,  as 
when  "  the  foul  witch,"  Sycorax,  with  age  and  envy  "  grown 
into  a  hoop,"  mother  of  the  "  dull  thing,"  Caliban,  the  born 
devil,  on  whose  nature  "nurture  can  never  stick,"  came 
from  Africa,  banished  "  from  Argier  "  to  that  uninhabited 
island  which  lay  off  somewhere   toward  "the   still-vex'd 

Bermoothes  " :  — 

"  Then  was  this  island, 
(Save  for  the  son  that  she  did  litter  here, 
A  freckled  whelp,  hag-born,)  not  honour'd  with 
A  human  shape."  —  Tempest,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

He  agreed  also  with  Aristotle,  that  there  was  a  difference 
between  the  races  of  men,  inhabiting  different  parts  of  the 
earth,  and  between  man  and  man,  not  unlike  that  which 
exists  between  man  and  animals.  "  But  for  my  part,"  says 
he,  "  I  take  it  neither  for  a  brag  nor  for  a  wish,  but  for  a 
truth  as  he  limiteth  it.  For  he  saith  if  there  be  found  such 
an  inequality  between  man  and  man  as  there  is  between 
man  and  beast,  or  between  soul  and  body,  it  investeth  a 
right  of  government :  which  seemeth  rather  an  impossible 
case  than  an  untrue  sentence.  But  I  hold  both  the  judg- 
ment true  and  the  case  possible ;  and  such  as  hath  had,  and 
hath  a  being,  both  in  particular  men  and  nations."  And  the 
play  even  ventures  to  go  farther  still,  and  to  hint  at  a  dif- 
ference as  wide  as  a  difference  of  species  in  the  genus 
(wherein,  again,  our  modern  science  is  also  not  far  behind 
him)  thus:  — 

"  1  Mur.  We  are  men,  my  liege. 

Macb.    Ay,  in  the  catalogue  ye  go  for  men, 
As  hounds,  and  greyhounds,  mongrels,  spaniels,  curs, 
Shoughs,  water-rugs,  and  demi-wolves,  are  clep'd 
All  by  the  name  of  dogs :  the  valued  file 
Distinguishes  the  swift,  the  slow,  the  subtle, 
The  house-keeper,  the  hunter,  every  one 


PARALLEL  WORKS.  163 

According  to  the  gift  which  bounteous  Nature 
Hath  in  him  clos'd;  whereby  he  does  receive 
Particular  addition,  from  the  bill 
That  writes  them  all  alike :  and  so  of  men." 

Macbeth,  Act  I  IT.  Sc.  1. 

These  learned  investigations,  together  with  the  Sum- 
mary (or  Higher)  Philosophy,  of  which  Bacon  had  some 
knowledge,  but  of  which  such  a  man  as  William  Shakes- 
peare could  have  had  but  little  notion,  might  lead  up  the 
author  of  the  "  Tempest "  and  the  "  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,"  beyond  the  Scriptural  allegories  of  Noah's  Ark 
and  the  Garden  of  Eden,  to  those  more  comprehensive  and 
more  profoundly  philosophical  conceptions  of  things,  which 
are  distinctly  imaged  forth  in  these  beautiful  dramas.  At 
the  same  time,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  "  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream  "  was  written  as  early  as  1594,  and  the 
"Tempest"  in  1611,  while  the  "New  Atlantis"  was  not 
written  until  after  1620,  and  the  "  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients" 
was  first  printed  (in  Latin)  in  1610 ;  and  this  effectually 
excludes  all  possibility  that  William  Shakespeare  could 
have  borrowed  from  Bacon  in  the  writing  of  these  plays. 
And  the  like  is  true  in  many  other  instances.  On  the  other 
hand,  like  instances  will  be  given  to  show,  that  Francis 
Bacon  could  not  have  borrowed  from  Shakespeare,  other- 
wise than  from  himself. 

Furthermore,  it  may  be  observed,  in  this  connection, 
that  those  remarkable  passages,  which  are  most  frequently 
quoted  by  the  great  lights  of  modern  literature  in  proof  of 
the  deep  insight  of  Shakespeare  and  his  superiority  as  a 
poet,  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that  the  writer  had  attained 
to  those  deeply  metaphysical  ideas  concerning  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe  and  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man  in 
it,  which  have  been  entertained  in  any  age,  as  they  now  are, 
by  a  small  number  of  the  profoundest  thinkers  and  most 
rare  and  learned  men  only.  The  writings  of  Bacon,  care- 
fully studied,  will  show  that  he  was  familiar  with  these 
heights  and  depths,  and  that,  having  lighted  his  torch  at 


164  PARALLEL   WORKS. 

the  glorious  sun  of  Plato  (not  neglecting  Aristotle),  he  was, 
with  that  illumination  and  the  help  of  his  own  newer 
methods,  exploring  "  the  universal  world,"  and  endeavoring 
to  instaurate,  as  it  were  in  advance,  not  the  experimental 
science  merely,  but  the  higher  philosophy  of  the  XlXth 
century.  Without  the  help  of  such  studies,  there  is  no 
possibility,  now,  for  any  man  to  attain  to  this  philosophy ; 
much  less  William  Shakespeare,  or  even  Bacon  himself,  in 
that  age.  That  Shakespeare  had  ever  turned  his  attention 
at  all  to  studies  which  lay  in  that  direction,  we  have  no 
other  proof  than  what  the  plays  themselves  afford;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  we  have  pretty  decisive  evidence,  in  his 
personal  history,  that  he  could  never  have  done  so.  There 
was  no  other  man  of  that  time  but  Bacon  that  we  know  of, 
who  had  done  so  to  the  same  extent  as  he ;  for  even  that 
Platonic  thinker  and  poet,  George  Herbert,  is  not  to  be 
excepted ;  or  if  there  be  any  exception,  he  will  be  found  to 
have  been,  like  Sidney,  Greville,  Sackville,  Raleigh,  Her- 
bert, Hooker,  Selden,  Donne,  or  Cudworth,  a  child  of  the 
University,  that  could  bring  to  his  work  as  an  author  the 
discipline  and  finish  of  accurate  and  thorough  scholarship, 
the  rich  spoils  of  classic  antiquity,  and  the  fruits  of  years 
of  learned  research,  in  the  course  of  which  the  depths  of 
Plato  must  have  been  sounded.  But  no  other  man  can  be 
named,  who  is  not,  upon  considerations  of  another  kind, 
completely  excluded  from  the  question  of  this  authorship ; 
and  hence  a  ground  of  argument  of  no  little  weight,  that 
Bacon  must  have  been  the  man. 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  and  the  Characters  of 
Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar,  may  show  the  direction  of  his 
studies,  and  they  disclose  the  source  of  that  familiar  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Grecian  mythology  and  the  Roman  history, 
and  with  the  ancient  manners  and  customs,  which  is  so 
distinctly  displayed  in  these  poetical  works,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  "  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  the  "  Timon  of  Athens," 
the  "  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  the  "  Coriolanus,"  and  the 


BEN  JONSON.  165 

"Julius  Caesar."  The  Memory  and  Discourse  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  find  a  parallel  in  Cranmer's  Speech  in  com- 
pliment to  King  James  and  "the  maiden  phoenix,"  his 
predecessor ;  the  History  of  Henry  VII.  in  the  tragedy 
of  Richard  III.  and  the  other  plays  founded  on  English 
history  and  the  Wars  of  the  Roses ;  the  intended  History 
of  Henry  VIII.,  in  the  tragedy  of  that  name  ;  the  New 
Atlantis,  in  prose,  in  these  types  and  models  in  verse; 
and  the  Essays,  the  Advancement,  the  Natural  Histoiy,  and 
the  Novum  Organum,  may  render  the  civil  and  moral  max- 
ims, the  natural  science,  and  the  metaphysical  philosophy 
of  the  plays  possible  for  their  author,  if  he  be  taken  to 
have  been  Francis  Bacon. 

§  2.   BEN   JONS  ON. 

Ben  Jonson  must  have  been  in  the  secret  of  this  arrange- 
ment Steevens  thought  the  Dedication  and  Preface  of 
Heming  and  Condell's  Folio  must  have  been  written  by 
him.  He  certainly  took  a  large  part  in  bringing  this 
marvellous  volume  to  light,  and  in  parading  in  the  frontis- 
piece the  stolid  effigies  of  this  mountebank,  which  probably 
needed  no  disguise  from  the  burin  of  Droeshout  to  make 
it  a  veritable  mask  of  Momus,  in  imperturbable  mock- 
seriousness,  shaking  his  lance  at  the  eyes  of  ignorance, 
'•  martial  in  the  warlike  sound  of  his  surname,  Hasti- 
vibrans" l  says  garrulous  old  Fuller ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  he  slyly  inserts,  on  the  opposite  page,  that  significant 

advice,  — 

"  Reader,  looke, 
Not  on  his  picture,  but  his  booke." 

The  style,  manner,  and  diction  of  this  Dedication  and  ( 
Preface  are  much  more  nearly  that  of  Bacon  ;  but  it  may  > 
very  well  have  been  Jonson.    The  story  of  the  players,  that 
Shakespeare  never  blotted  out  a  line,  has  already  been 
alluded  to ;  but  when  it  is  remembered  that  Ben  Jonson 

l  Worthies  of  England,  III.  284. 


166  BEN  JONS  ON. 

was  an  intimate  friend  and  great  admirer  of  Bacon,  deem- 
ing him  "by  his  works  one  of  the  greatest  of  men  and 
most  worthy  of  admiration  that  had  been  in  many  ages  "  ; 
that  he  wrote  a  poem  in  honor  of  "  England's  High  Chan- 
cellor," for  the  festivities  at  York  House  on  the  anniversary 
of  his  sixtieth  birthday,  in  which  he  speaks  of  him  as 

one 

"  "Whose  even  thread  the  Fates  spin  round  and  full, 
Out  of  their  choicest  and  their  whitest  wool;  " 

that  he  was  certainly  present,  if  he  did  not  take  an  active 
part,  in  bringing  out  the  "  Henry  VIII."  at  the  Globe,  in 
1613  ;  that  he  was  one  of  those  "  good  pens  "  whose  learned 
service  Bacon  employed  in  the  translation  of  his  English 
works  into  Latin ;  that  even  "  in  his  adversity,"  after  his 
fall  from  power,  he  could  not  "  condole  in  a  word  or  syllable 
for  him,  as  knowing  no  accident  could  do  harm  to  virtue, 
but  rather  help  to  make  it  manifest " ;  and  that  he  was  him- 
self a  scholar,  a  critic,  and  a  judge  of  men ;  it  can  scarcely 
be  doubted,  either  that  this  anecdote  of  the  players  would 
be  in  the  possession  of  Bacon,  and  as  likely  to  be  used  by 
him  as  by  Jonson  himself,  or  that  Jonson  would  have  the 
sagacity  and  the  means  to  discover  the  secret  of  this 
authorship,  as  well  as  the  honor  and  good  faith  to  keep  it. 
He  knew  the  cast  of  Bacon's  mind  and  character.  He  had 
read  his  prose  compositions,  had  translated  some  of  them 
into  Latin,  and  must  have  been  familiar  with  his  mode  of 
thinking  and  his  style  of  writing.  And  it  is  scarcely  cred- 
ible that  he  should  not  have  recognized  in  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare,  the  hand  and  genius  of  the  master  whom  he 
so  much  admired.  That  he  appreciated  this  poetry  in  as 
high  a  degree  as  the  critics  of  later  times,  even  down  to 
our  day,  may  be  clearly  seen  in  his  poetical  "  Eulogy  "  on 
Shakespeare.  It  is  carefully  dedicated  to  the  "  Memory  " 
of  Shakespeare  "  and  what  he  hath  left  us  " ;  and  the  whole 
tenor  of  it  is  such  as  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  reader  more 
on  the  writings  than  on  the  man.     It  was  certainly  his 


BEX  JONSON.  167 

opinion,  that  the  great  poet  had  not  been  merely  born,  but 
made :  — 

"  For  a  good  poet 's  made  as  well  as  born, 
And  such  wert  thou.    Look,  how  the  father's  face 
Lives  in  his  issue ;  even  so  the  race 
Of  Shakespeare's  mind  and  manners  brightly  shines, 
In  his  well-turned  and  true-filed  lines ; 
In  each  of  which  he  seems  to  shake  a  lance, 
As  brandish'd  at  the  eyes  of  ignorance." 

And  the  concluding  lines  of  this  "  Eulogy,"  in  which  the 
volume  itself  still  makes  the  principal  figure,  may  be  ap- 
plied with  force  and  equal  appropriateness  to  the  other :  — 

"  Shine  forth,  thou  Star  of  Poets,  and  with  rage, 
Or  influence,  chide  or  cheer  the  drooping  stage, 
Which  since  thy  flight  from  hence  hath  mourned  like  night, 
And  despairs  day,  but  for  thy  Volumes'  light." 

There  are  some  vague  traditions  that  Ben  Jonson  severely 
criticized  the  productions  of  Shakespeare,  and  was  envious 
of  his  superiority  and  his  fame.  They  seem  to  be  founded 
on  the  writings  of  Jonson  himself;  and  from  these,  it  should 
rather  be  inferred  that  Jonson  could  not  really  have  be- 
lieved that  William  Shakespeare  was  the  actual  author  of 
the  works  which  were  produced  in  his  name.  His  account 
of  the  anecdote  of  the  players  runs  thus :  —  "I  remember 
the  players  have  often  mentioned  it  as  an  honor  to  Shakes- 
peare, that  in  writing  (whatever  he  penned)  he  never  blotted 
out  line."  Now,  no  man  knew  better  than  Jonson,  not  even 
Pope,  the  utter  impossibility  of  such  works  as  these  dramas 
being  dashed  off,  in  a  rapid  first  draught,  at  once  finished 
and  complete,  without  a  line  blotted.  That  the  players 
thought  so,  must  have  been  a  fine  joke  for  him  and  Bacon ; 
that  the  players  said  so,  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that 
they  thought  it  a  pretty  good  jest  themselves.  Bacon  tran- 
scribed the  "  Novum  Organum  "  some  twelve  times,  before 
it  was  finished  to  his  satisfaction.  Burke  copied  his 
■  French  Revolution  "  six  times,  before  he  would  suffer  it 
to  receive  the  final  stamp  of  the  press.     Smaller  poems 


168  BEN  JONSON. 

may  have  been  sometimes  composed  and  written  down  at 
once  complete.  Goethe  tells  us,  that,  sometimes,  when 
he  had  conceived  a  sonnet,  or  a  song,  he  immediately  ran 
to  paper,  and  jotted  it  down,  before  it  should  vanish  from 
his  memory.  Alfieri  wrote  his  tragedies  first  in  brief  prose, 
then  in  extended  form,  and  lastly,  put  them  into  verse ;  and 
Virgil,  about  to  die,  after  many  years  of  toil,  is  said  to  have 
commended  the  "iEneid"  to  the  flames  as  not  yet  finished 
to  his  liking.  Where  is  the  record  in  all  literary  history  of 
extended  compositions  like  these  dramas  having  been  spun 
out  in  this  Arachne-like  fashion  ?  The  very  proposition  is 
well-nigh  absurd.  Common  actors  might  possibly  believe,  or 
imagine,  that  their  facetious  manager,  amidst  the  daily  bustle 
of  the  theatre,  and  in  the  few  hours  of  leisure  which  he 
could  snatch  from  business,  or  from  sleep,  out  of  his  mirac- 
ulous invention,  and  with  the  inspired  pen  of  born  genius, 
could  dash  off  a  Hamlet,  or  a  Lear,  perfect  to  a  syllable,  as 
easily  as  twinkle  his  eye.  But  the  learned  and  judicious 
critic,  or  any  capable  judge  of  the  matter,  will  rather  turn 
his  search  to  the  retired  chambers  of  Gray's  Inn,  or  to  the 
embowered  lodge  of  Twickenham  Park,  or  to  the  blooming 
gardens  of  Gorhambury,  where  sat  brooding  in  silence  and 
in  private  the  great  soul  that  had  taken  all  knowledge  for 
his  province,  hopefully  murmuring,  "  Sir,  I  lack  advance- 
ment," and  "  I  eat  the  air,  promise-crammed,"  yet  diligently 
pursuing  his  "vast  contemplative  ends,"  with  plenty  of 
leisure  and  little  business,  leading  a  life  "  so  private  "  that  he 
had  "  had  no  means  "  to  do  the  Lord  Burghley  "  service," ! 
thin  and  pale  with  "  inward  secret  grief,"  and  continually 
sickly  "  by  untimely  going  to  bed,  and  then  musing  nescio 
quid  when  he  should  sleep  " ;  and  that  onward,  nearly  so,  for 
the  space  of  thirty  long  years,  publicly  looking  for  promotion 
in  the  state,  while  privately  elaborating,  and  doubtless  with 
the  most  scrupulous  care,  the  great  works  in  prose  and  verse, 
which  were  to  carry  his   name   and   memory  to   foreign 

l  Letter  to  Burghley. 


BEN  JONSON.  169 

nations  and  the  next  ages.  No  doubt,  the  original  man- 
uscripts which  came  to  the  hands  of  William  Shakespeare, 
or  the  copies  that  came  into  the  hands  of  the  players,  would 
be  clean  and  complete,  with  never  a  line  blotted,  —  a  won- 
derful miracle,  indeed,  to  the  players !  And  so,  the  sonnet 
sings : — 

"  How  like  a  Winter  hath  my  ahsence  been 
'       From  thee,  the  pleasure  of  the  fleeting  year? 

What  freezings  have  I  felt,  what  dark  days  seen? 
What  old  December's  bareness  everywhere  ? 
And  yet  this  time  remov'd  was  summer's  time, 
.     The  teeming  Autumn  big  with  rich  increase, 
Bearing  the  wanton  burthen  of  the  prime, 
Like  widow'd  wombs  after  their  lord's  decease: 
Yet  this  abundant  issue  seem'd  to  me 
But  hope  of  Orphans,  and  unfather'd  fruit, 
For  Summer  and  his  pleasures  wait  on  thee, 
And  thou  away,  the  very  birds  are  mute, 
Or,  if  they  sing,  't  is  with  so  dull  a  cheer, 
That  leaves  look  pale,  dreading  the  Winter 's  near." 

Sonnet  xcvii.  1 

The  remainder  of  Ben  Jonson's  account  of  Shakespeare 
is  much  in  keeping  with  this  hypothesis.  He  says  further  : 
"  My  answer  hath  been,  Would  he  had  blotted  out  a  thousand! 
which  they  thought  a  malevolent  speech.  I  had  not  told 
posterity  this,  but  for  their  ignorance,  who  chose  that  circum- 
stance to  commend  their  friend  by,  wherein  he  most  faulted, 
and  to  justify  mine  own  candour,  for  I  love  the  man,  and 
do  honour  his  memory,  on  this  side  idolatry,  as  much  as 
any.  He  was,  indeed,  honest,  and  of  an  open  and  free 
nature,  had  an  excellent  fancy,  brave  notions,  and  gentle 
expressions  ;  wherein  he  flowed  with  that  facility  that  some- 
times it  was  necessary  he  should  be  stopped  :  Sufflaminandm 
erat,  as  Augustus  said  of  Haterius.  His  wit  was  in  his  own 
power  ;  would  the  rule  of  it  had  been  so,  too.  Many  times 
he  fell  into  those  things  which  could  not  escape  laughter, 
as  when  he  said  in  the  person  of  Caesar,  one  speaking  to 
1  Sonnets  (Fac-simile  of  the  ed.  of  1609),  London,  1862. 


170  BEN  JONSON. 

him, '  Caesar,  thou  dost  me  wrong,'  he  replied, '  Caesar  did 
never  wrong,  but  with  just  cause;'  and  such  like,  which 
were  ridiculous.  But  he  redeemed  his  vices  with  his  vir- 
tues ;  there  was  ever  more  in  him  to  be  praised  than  to  be 
pardoned."  1 

This  line,  it  seems,  is  not  correctly  quoted  from  any  known 
edition  of  the  play ;  the  statement  may  refer  to  Shake- 
speare's mode  of  speaking  the  passage  as  an  actor  on  the 
stage  ;  and  the  whole  account  carries  with  it  an  air  of  irony, 
and  the  appearance  of  a  constrained  vindication  of  himself 
from  a  malevolent  and  ridiculous  complaint  of  ignorant 
persons.  His  observations  relate,  in  part,  to  the  person 
of  Shakespeare,  and,  in  part,  to  his  supposed  productions, 
perhaps ;  though  in  this,  he  is  equivocal  and  indefinite.  If 
he  knew  the  secret,  he  certainly  meant  to  keep  it.  His 
intimation,  that  the  rule  of  his  wit  was  not  sufficiently  in 
his  power,  and  that  he  sometimes  made  himself  ridiculous, 
probably  had  some  foundation  in  fact.  He  could  not  well 
refrain  from  rebuking  the  folly  of  the  players,  nor  from 
vindicating  himself  from  the  charge  of  malevolence  towards 
Shakespeare.  With  regard  to  the  personal  qualities  of  the 
man,  his  opinion  may  be  taken  as  coming  near  the  truth. 
These  are  the  qualities  of  an  agreeable  companion,  a  face- 
tious fellow,  and  a  prosperous  manager ;  but  they  do  not 
account  for  these  plays,  nor  for  that  excellent  appreciation 
of  their  quality,  which  we  find  in  Ben  Jonson's  "  Eulogy." 

The  traditions  handed  down  by  Fuller  are  of  like  import 
"Jonson,"  says  he,  "was  built  far  higher  in  learning,  solid 
but  slow ;  but  Shakespeare  lesser  in  bulk,  but  lighter  for 
sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack  about,  and  take  ad- 
vantage of  all  winds,  by  the  quickness  of  his  art  and  inven- 
tion." All  this  is  a  mere  afterthought,  and  a  tale  of  myth- 
ical growth,  like  his  other  old  saw  of  Poeta  nascitur,  and 
his  Cornish  diamonds,  that  were  not  polished  by  any  lapi- 
dary ;  and  they  may  illustrate  how  "  Nature  itself  was  all 
1  Ben  Jonson's  Discoveries. 


BEN  JONSON.  171 

the  art  which  was  used  "  upon  William  Shakespeare ;  but 
they  do  not  explain  the  origin  of  these  very  extraordinary 
compositions. 

Another  traditionary  document  may  be  mentioned,  which 
was  published  in  1643-5,  and  was  believed  by  Sir  Egerton 
Bridges  to  have  been  the  work  of  George  Withers,  the 
poet.  Withers  was  born  in  1588,  and  died  in  1667,  and  he 
may  be  considered  as  a  contemporary.  This  document  will 
show,  that  Lord  Bacon,  in  the  opinion  of  Withers,  at  least, 
was  entitled  to  high  rank  among  his  contemporaries  in  the 
kingdom  of  Apollo.  It  is  entitled  "  The  Great  Assizes 
holden  in  Parnassus  by  Apollo  and  his  Assessours,  at  which 
are  arraigned  Mercurius  Brittanicus,  Mercurius  Aulicus," 
&c,  (periodical  publications  of  that  time).  It  proceeds 
thus : 

*  The  Members  of  the  Parnassian  Court  are  as  follows :  — 

Apollo. 

The  Lord  Verulam,  Chancellor  of  Parnassus. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney,  High  Constable  of  Parnassus. 

William  Bud.eus,  High  Treasurer. 

John  Picus,  Earl  of  Mirandula,  High  Chamberlaine. 

Julius  Cesar  Scaliger.  Isaac  Casaubon. 

Erasmus  Roterodam.  John  Selden. 

Justus  Lipsius.  Hugo  Grotius. 

John  Barcklay.  Daniel  Heinsius. 

John  Bodine.  Conradus  Vorstius. 

Adrian  Turnebus.  Augustine  Mascardus. 

The  Jurors. 

George  Withers.  Michael  Drayton. 

Thomas  Cary.  Francis  Beaumont. 

Thomas  May.  John  Fletcher. 

William  Davenant.  Thomas  Haywood. 

Joshua  Sylvester.  William  Shakespeare. 

George  Sanders.  Philip  Massinger. 

The  Malefactors  [as  in  the  title.] 
Joseph  Scaliger,  the  Censour  of  Manners  in  Parnassus. 
Ben  Jonson,  Keeper  of  the  Trophonian  Denne. 
John  Taylour,  Cryer  of  the  Court. 
Edmund  Spenser,  Clerk  of  the  Assizes." 


172  MATTHEW'S  POSTSCRIPT. 

Then  follows  a  poetical  account  of  the  empanelling  of 
the  jury,  the  arraignment  of  the  malefactors,  and  the  pro- 
ceedings generally,  u  soure  Ben,"  all  the  while,  having  the 
culprits  in  custody  in  "  the  Trophonian  Denne."  x 

§  3.  Matthew's  postscript. 

Another  very  remarkable  piece  of  evidence  is  Mr.  Tobie 
Matthew's  postscript.  It  is  appended  to  a  letter  to  Bacon, 
which  is  itself  without  date,  but  is  addressed  to  the  Vis- 
count St.  Alban,  and  must  therefore  necessarily  have  been 
subsequent  to  the  27th  day  of  January,  1621,  when  his 
Lordship  was  invested  with  that  title.  The  letter  is  found 
in  the  collection  of  Birch,  and  is  placed  by  him  among 
those  "  wanting  both  dates  and  circumstances  to  determine 
the  date." 2  It  appears  to  be  in  answer  to  a  letter  from 
Lord  Bacon  dated  "  the  9th  of  April "  (year  not  given),  ac- 
companying some  "  great  and  noble  token  "  of  his  "  Lord- 
ship's favour,"  which  was,  in  all  probability,  a  newly  printed 
book  ;  for  Bacon,  as  we  know  from  the  Letters,  was  in 
the  habit  of  sending  to  Mr.  Matthew  a  copy  of  his  books  as 
they  were  published ;  and  much  of  their  correspondence 
had  relation  more  or  less  to  the  books  and  writings  on 
which  Bacon  was  at  the  time  engaged.  We  know  that  the 
works  published  by  Lord  Bacon,  after  1620,  were  the  His- 
tory of  Henry  VII.,  in  March,  1622;  the  De  Augmentis, 
in  October,  1623,  the  Apothegms,  in  December,  1624,  and 
the  Essays  and  Psalms,  in  1625 ;  and  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  the  Folio  of  1623,  which  was  entered  at  Sta- 
tioners' Hall  in  November  of  that  year,  was  issued  from  the 
press  in  the  spring  of  that  year,  —  there  being  a  copy  now 
in  existence  bearing  the  date  of  1622  on  the  title-page, 
showing  that  a  part  of  the  edition  was  actually  struck  off 
before  the  end  of  1622.  In  like  manner,  the  first  edition 
of  the  Apothegms  bears  date  1625,  though  in  fact  pub- 

1  Bridges'  Brit.  Bibliographer,  I.  513. 

2  Works  (Mont.)  XII.  468;  (Philad.)  III.  160. 


MATTHEW'S  POSTSCRIPT.  173 

lished  in  December,  1624.1  We  know,  also,  from  the  Let- 
ters, that  Mr.  Matthew  resided  in  London  in  the  years 
1621-2,  and  down  to  the  18th  day  of  April,  1623,  the  date 
of  a  letter  of  Bacon,  which  he  was  to  carry  with  him  into 
Spain  to  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  in  whose  service  he 
was  to  be  there  employed;  and  he  returned  to  England 
with  the  Duke  and  the  Prince  in  October,  1623,  and  re- 
ceived from  the  King  at  Royston  the  honor  of  knighthood 
on  the  10th  day  of  that  month.2  He  remained  a  few  years 
in  London,  and  then  went  to  Ireland.  In  a  letter  to  the 
Duke,  dated  at  Gorhambury,  March  20th,  1621-2,  Bacon 
says  :  "  I  am  bold  to  present  your  Lordship  with  a  book  of 
my  History  of  King  Henry  YIL,  and  now  that,  in  summer 
that  was  twelve  months,  I  dedicated  a  book  to  his  Majesty, 
and  this  last  summer,  this  book  to  the  Prince,  your  Lord- 
ship's turn  is  next ;  and  this  summer  that  cometh,  if  I 
live  to  it,  shall  be  yours."  The  Novum  Organum  had  been 
dedicated  to  the  King  in  1620,  and  if  we  count  the  sum- 
mers, we  shall  see  that  the  summer  of  1621  was  devoted  to 
the  History  of  Henry  VII.,  and  that  of  1622  to  the  De 
Augmentis,  which  was  to  be  dedicated  to  Buckingham, 
but  was  not  published  until  October,  1623,  just  after  the 
Duke's  return  from  Spain.  On  the  20th  of  March,  1622, 
copies  of  the  History  of  Henry  VII.  were  presented  to 
the  King  and  Buckingham,  and  on  the  20th  of  April  fol- 
lowing, one  to  the  Queen  of  Bohemia,  as  we  see  by  the 
Letters.3  And  it  is  not  improbable,  that  on  the  9th  of 
April  of  the  same  year,  a  copy  may  have  been  sent  to  Mr. 
Matthew  also,  and  that  this  may  have  been  the  "noble 
token  "  referred  to.  Neither  is  there  anything  at  all  in  the 
way  of  the  supposition  that  this  date  may  actually  have 
been  the  9th  of  April,  1623 ;  and  there  was  no  publication 
of  any  work  of  Bacon,  during  that  spring,  which  he  would 

1  Spedding's  Pre/.  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  314. 

2  Nichols'  Prog.  James  /.,  III.  930  n. 

»  Works  (Mont.)  XII.  430;  XIII.  36,  39. 


174  MATTHEW'S  POSTSCRIPT. 

be  sending  to  Mr.  Matthew,  unless  it  were  precisely  this 
Folio  of  1623 :  nor  does  anything  appear  on  record  to  indi- 
cate a  later  date  than  this  for  this  very  notable  postscript. 
And  considering  that  it  was  this  same  Mr.  Tobie  Matthew, 
who  personated  the  "  Squire  "  in  the  masque  at  Essex's 
house ;  that  he  was  "  one  of  the  most  eccentric  characters 
of  that  age,"  an  intimate  literary  friend  of  Bacon,  and  a 
correspondent  of  long  standing,  to  whom  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  sending  his  books  as  they  came  out,  making  him, 
too,  sometimes,  his  critical  "  inquisitor  " *  beforehand  ;  that, 
at  this  very  time,  the  closest  relations  of  friendship  and 
correspondence  subsisted  between  them,  "  being,"  says  Ba- 
con, not  long  after,  in  a  letter  to  Cottington,  "  as  true  a 
friend  as  any  you  or  I  have  ; " 2  and  that  he  was  himself  a 
scholar,  and  a  son  of  the  Archbishop  of  York,  with  whom 
also  Bacon  corresponded,  and  was  particularly  familiar 
with  Bacon's  writings,  mind,  and  character ;  we  shall  be 
prepared  not  to  be  so  greatly  surprised  at  the  intimation 
given  in  this  postscript,  that  he  knew  a  secret,  respecting 
which  he  could  not  forbear  to  compliment  his  Lordship 
on  this  occasion ;  and  the  more  especially,  if  we  may  sup- 
pose that  it  was  the  new  Folio  that  he  had  before  him. 
The  letter  runs  thus :  — 

"  To  the  Lord  Viscount  St.  Alban:  — 

"Most  honored  Lord, — I  have  received  your  great  and 
noble  token  and  favour  of  the  9th  of  April,  and  can  but  return 
the  humblest  of  my  thanks  for  your  Lordship's  vouchsafing  so  to 
visit  this  poorest  and  unworthiest  of  your  servants.  It  doth  me 
good  at  heart,  that,  although  I  be  not  where  I  was  in  place,  yet  I 
am  in  the  fortune  of  your  Lordship's  favour,  if  I  may  call  that  for- 
tune, which  I  observe  to  be  so  unchangeable.  I  pray  hard  that  it 
may  once  come  in  my  power  to  serve  you  for  it ;  and  who  can 
tell  but  that,  as  fortis  imaginatio  generat  casum,  so  strong  desires 
may  do  as  much  ?    Sure  I  am  that  mine  are  ever  waiting  on  your 

1  Letter  to  Matthew. 

2  Letter  1623,  Works  (Mont.), XII.  445. 


MATTHEW'S  POSTSCRIPT.  175 

Lordship ;  and  wishing  as  much  happiness  as  is  due  to  your  incom- 
parable virtue,  I  humbly  do  your  Lordship  reverence. 
"  Your  Lordship's  most  obliged  and  humble  servant, 

"  Tobie  Matthew. 

"  P.  S.  The  most  prodigious  wit  that  ever  I  knew  of  my  na- 
tion, and  of  this  side  of  the  sea,  is  of  your  Lordship's  name,  though 
he  be  known  by  another."  (*) 

Now,  who  else  but  this  same  Shakespeare  could  have 
been  considered  by  Mr.  Matthew  to  be  a  cover  for  the  most 
prodigious  wit  of  all  England,  at  that  day?  or  what  else 
could  have  more  naturally  prompted  this  unique  postscript 
than  the  new  History  of  Henry  VIL,  all  sparkling  with 
Shakespearean  diamonds,  or  indeed  this  Folio,  all  blazing 
with  the  Baconian  wit,  power,  and  beauty  ?  It  could  not 
have  been  Bacon  as  philosopher,  statesman,  or  eminent 
prose-writer ;  for  all  his  known  works  were  published  under 
his  own  name.  Neither  could  the  word  wit  have  been  used 
here  in  the  more  general  sense  of  that  day  as  meaning 
genius  and  ability  in  general ;  for  in  this  sense,  it  could 
only  have  been  applied  to  these  same  acknowledged  works. 
It  must  therefore  have  been  intended  in  the  special  sense 
of  the  word  as  now  used.  That  Bacon  was  a  great  wit  in 
every  sense  of  the  word,  needs  no  demonstration  here.  We 
have  direct  and  satisfactory  evidence  of  it  in  his  own 
writings  everywhere ;  and  it  has  been  proverbial  with  all 
who  have  written  concerning  him,  from  Ben  Jonson  to 
Macaulay.  Queen  Elizabeth  said  he  "  had  a  great  wit  and 
much  learning  " ;  Ben  Jonson,  that  he  could  not  "  spare  or 
pass  by  a  jest";  Sir  Robert  Naunton,  a  contemporary, 
says  of  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  that  he  was  "  an  arch-peece  of 
wit,  and  of  wisdome,"  and  "abundantly  facetious;  which 
tooke  much  with  the  queene  "  ;  and  he  adds  that  "  he  was 
father  to  that  refined  wit,  which  since  hath  acted  a  dis- 
astrous part  on  the  publique  stage,  and  of  late  sate  in  his 
l  Works  (Mont),  XII.  468;  (III.,  Philad.  160). 


176  MATTHEW'S  POSTSCRIPT. 

father's  roome  as  lord  chancellor  "  ; 1  and  this  testimony  of 
Mr.  Matthew  that  he  was  a  "  most  prodigious  wit "  may  be 
taken  as  settling  the  question.  Clearly,  somebody  was 
shining  in  borrowed  feathers,  which  not  only  belonged  to 
Bacon,  but  made  him  the  most  prodigious  wit  of  that  side 
of  the  sea ;  and  of  this,  Mr.  Matthew  was  unquestionably 
a  competent  judge.  It  could  have  been  no  other  than  that 
"  upstart  crow  beautified  with  our  feathers,"  that  the  incred- 
ulous Greene  knew  for  "  a  Johannes  factotum  "  and  "  the 
only  Shake-scene  in  a  country." 

Mr.  Matthew  was  much  in  the  habit  of  adding  post- 
scripts to  his  letters  to  Bacon.  In  one,  he  asks  his  lordship 
to  send  him  u  some  of  his  philosophical  labours  "  ;  and  in 
a  letter  to  Mr.  Matthew,  Bacon  writes :  "  I  have  sent  you 
some  copies  of  my  book  of  the  '  Advancement,'  which  you 
desired,  and  a  little  work  of  my  recreation,  which  you 
desired  not"2  What  this  "little  work"  was,  there  is  no 
intimation ;  and  it  might  be  altogether  too  great  a  stretch 
of  the  imagination  to  suppose  it  may  have  been  a  quarto 
play.  Nevertheless,  it  may  not  be  unreasonable  to  believe 
that  these  little  recreations  of  his  other  studies  may  have 
helped  to  furnish  the  key,  by  which  the  secret  had  been 
unlocked.  In  fact,  it  would  be  well-nigh  incredible,  that  a 
scholar,  who  was  so  familiar  with  Bacon  and  his  writings  as 
Ben  Jonson,  or  Sir  Tobie  Matthew,  must  have  been,  should 
not  have  discovered  the  hand  and  soul  of  Francis  Bacon  in 
these  plays  of  Shakespeare  as  certainly  as  a  Bernouilli  the 
genius  of  Newton  in  the  anonymous  solution  of  a  mathe- 
matical problem,  —  ex  ungue  Leonem  :  —  especially,  when 
he  ventured  to  write  in  this  manner  in  the  Sonnets :  — 

"  Why  is  my  verse  so  barren  of  new  pride  ? 
So  far  from  variation  or  quick  change  ? 
\  Why  with  the  time  do  I  not  glance  aside 

To  new-found  methods,  and  to  compounds  strange? 
Why  write  I  still  all  one,  ever  the  same, 

1  Fragmenta  Regalia,  75,  (London,  1824). 

2  Letter,  Works  (Philad.),  III.  71;  (Mont.),  XVI.,  Note  AAA.  (1605). 


CONTEMPORARY  WRITERS.  177  > 

And  keep  invention  in  a  noted  weed, 
That  every  word  doth  almost  tell  my  name, 
Showing  their  birth,  and  where  they  did  proceed?  " 

Sonnet  lxxvi. 

Which  wonder  shall  find  an  echo  in  his  Prayers,  thus :  — 
"  The  state  and  bread  of  the  poor  and  oppressed  have  been 
precious  in  mine  eyes  :  I  have  hated  all  cruelty  and  hard- 
ness of  heart :  I  have,  though  in  a  despised  weed,  procured 
the  good  of  all  men."  1 

§  4.    CONTEMPORARY   WRITERS. 

A  critical  comparison  of  these  poetical  works  with  the 
writings  of  contemporary  authors  will  result  always  in  a 
complete  exclusion  of  them  all  from  any  competition  for 
this  authorship.  Question  has  been  made  by  some  critics 
as  to  some  few  of  the  earlier  and  less  conspicuous  plays, 
but  of  the  greater  ones,  and  especially  of  those  which  have 
a  more  philosophical  character,  as  also  of  the  sonnets  and 
poems,  no  well-grounded  doubt  has  ever  been  entertained, 
that  they  were  all  the  work  of  one  and  the  same  writer. 
In  these,  as  indeed  in  all  the  rest,  the  style  and  manner  of 
the  genuine  Shakespeare  are  so  distinctly  marked  and  so 
peculiar  as  at  once  to  distinguish  them  from  the  productions 
of  any  other  writer  of  that  or  any  other  age.  The  style 
and  genius  of  Shakespeare  have  ever  been  considered,  if 
not  unapproachable,  at  least  perfectly  sui  generis.  In  this 
comparison,  in  respect  of  philosophic  depth  of  insight, 
knowledge  of  art,  and  the  fundamental  principles  of  dra- 
matic composition,  Ben  Jonson,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Mas- 
singer,  Ford,  Marlowe,  Drayton,  and  the  rest,  sink  to  the 
level  of  ordinary  writers :  their  range  in  the  world  of 
thought  and  knowledge  lay  far  below  him.  Bacon's  prose, 
compared  with  that  of  other  writers  of  his  own  or  any 
other  age,  is  no  less  distinguishable,  nor  less  decidedly 
characteristic  of  the  individual  man. 

l  Prayer,  Works,  (Philad.),  II.  405. 
12 


178  CONTEMPORARY   WRITERS. 

Sir  "Walter  Raleigh  seems  to  have  been  considered,  by 
at  least  one  writer,1  to  have  been  equal  to  a  share  in  this 
work.  He  was  indeed  a  polished  courtier,  a  learned  man 
for  that  day,  and  a  patron  of  learning  and  art,  himself  a 
distinguished  author  in  prose  and  verse,  a  scientific  inves- 
tigator and  a  somewhat  philosophical  thinker.  He  was 
thirty-seven  years  of  age  when  the  "  Titus  Andronicus  " 
appeared,  in  1589.  His  youth  was  spent  abroad  in  the 
wars ;  and,  after  his  introduction  at  Court,  in  1582,  his 
time  and  attention  must  have  been  more  or  less  exclusively 
occupied  with  his  courtly  company,  his  parliamentary  duties, 
his  military  expeditions,  his  voyages  of  discovery,  and  his 
various  business  transactions,  down  to  the  death  of  the 
Queen  and  the  beginning  of  his  troubles  in  1 603  ;  and  the 
"  History  of  the  World  "  and  other  writings  on  which  he  is 
known  to  have  been  employed,  while  a  prisoner  in  the 
Tower,  will  scarcely  leave  room  for  the  prosecution  of  a 
work  of  this  kind.  Any  theory  that  these  works  were  the 
product  of  a  society,  or  club,  or  partnership,  of  two  or  more 
individuals,  will  have  to  be  given  up  as  wholly  untenable  : 
it  is  utterly  inadmissible.  The  earlier  part  of  Raleigh's 
life  was  outwardly  active,  full  of  personal  display,  great 
exploit,  and  stirring  events.  He  took  trunks  of  books  on 
his  voyages,  and  experimented  in  chemistry  at  home ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  his  time  for  study  must  have  been  small,  and 
his  range  of  thought  and  knowledge  limited,  in  comparison 
with  Bacon.  It  is  plain  from  his  writings,  that  his  studies 
in  the  ancient  learning  and  philosophy,  and  his  acquire- 
ments generally,  were  rather  superficial  than  profound  in 
this  comparison.  His  "  Treatise  on  the  Soul "  may  be 
taken  as  a  fair  test  of  his  philosophic  depth ;  and,  compared 
with  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  it  shrinks  into  the  dimensions 
of  a  very  small  affair.  And  what  is  still  more  conclusive 
of  him,  as  of  the  rest  of  his  contemporaries,  his  writings,  in 
prose  and  verse,  exhibit  another  style  and  man  altogether. 

1  Phil,  of  Shahs.  Plays  Unfolded,  by  Delia  Bacon,  1857. 


REASONS  FOR  CONCEALMENT.         179 
§  5.  REASONS  FOB  CONCEALMENT. 

With  Bacon  himself,  a  desire  to  rise  in  the  profession 
of  the  law,  or  his  ambition  for  high  place  in  the  State,  the 
plan  of  life  he  had  chosen  to  follow,  the  low  reputation  of 
a  play-writer,  in  that  age,  and  the  mean  condition  and 
estate  of  all  poor  poets,  the  need  of  a  larger  liberty  and  a 
more  daring  freedom  of  thought  and  expression  than  he 
could  have  ventured  to  take,  without  some  danger  to  his 
fortunes,  or  even  to  his  personal  liberty,  at  times,  if  it  had 
been  known  that  he  was  the  author  of  these  plays,  and 
more  especially,  perhaps,  a  desire  that  his  reputation,  both 
with  his  contemporaries  and  with  after  times,  should  finally 
rest  upon  his  acknowledged  writings  and  his  philosophical 
works  in  particular,  as  of  greater  dignity  and  better  becom- 
ing his  station  and  the  civil  honors  he  sought  to  attain,  in 
accordance  with  the  ideas  of  that  age,  —  these,  not  to  dwell 
upon  other  reasons  of  a  philosophical  and  critical  nature, 
and  of  a  higher  and  more  disinterested  character,  —  are  of 
themselves,  perhaps,  a  sufficient  explanation  of  his  wish  to 
cover  this  authorship,  and  to  remain  a  concealed  poet,  in 
his  own  time  ;  and  especially  in  the  earlier  part  of  his 
career,  when  the  private  arrangement,  if  it  existed,  must 
have  been  made.  In  his  dedication  of  the  "  Colours  of 
Good  and  Evil  "  to  Lord  Mountjoy,  in  1595-7,  he  expressly 
tells  us,  that  it  was  his  "  manner  and  rule  to  keep  state  in 
contemplative  matters."  Lord  Coke  was  not  alone  among 
those  in  high  places,  at  that  day,  whose  opinion  was,  that 
play -writers  and  stage  -  players  were  fit  subjects  for  the 
grand  jury  as  "  vagrants,"  and  that  "  the  fatal  end  of  these 
five  is  beggary,  —  the  alchemyst,  the  monopotext,  the  con- 
cealer, the  informer,  and  the  poetaster " ; x  and  as  it  was, 
Coke  and  the  like  of  him  took  "  the  liberty  to  disgrace  and 
disable  his  law,"  and  constantly  sneered  at  his  "  book-learn- 
ing." Even  the  Queen  herself  seized  upon  it  as  an  excuse 
i  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices,  I.  279. 


180  REASONS  FOR  CONCEALMENT. 

for  refusing  him  promotion,  that  "  Bacon,"  as  she  said, 
"  had  a  great  wit,  and  much  learning,  but  that  in  law  he 
could  show  to  the  uttermost  of  his  knowledge,  and  was  not 
deep ; "  as  if  inferring  the  one  thing  from  the  other,  or  as  if 
a  man  could  not  know  law,  and,  at  the  same  time,  know 
anything  else.  In  general,  it  may  be  admitted  that  he  was 
in  some  degree  unsuited  for  a  life  of  executive  activity  in 
the  administration  of  affairs.  At  a  later  day,  he  confessed 
as  among  the  errors  of  his  life  "  this  great  one  which  led 
the  rest,  that  knowing  myself  by  inward  calling  to  be  fitter 
to  hold  a  book  than  play  a  part  I  have  led  my  life  in  civil 
causes,  for  which  I  was  not  very  fit  by  nature,  and  more 
unfit  by  preoccupation  of  mind."  1  In  the  state  of  things 
that  existed  in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I.  (to  be 
illustrated  in  the  particular  history  of  the  play  of  Richard 
II.),  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  see,  that  an  open  avowal  of 
this  authorship  might  have  been  fatal  to  all  his  prospects 
of  elevation  in  the  State,  on  which  he  considered  the  suc- 
cess of  his  efforts  for  the  advancement  of  science  and  the 
benefit  of  mankind  in  a  great  measure  to  depend.  "  But 
power  to  do  good,"  he  says,  "  is  the  true  and  lawful  end  of 
aspiring ;  for  good  thoughts  (though  God  accept  them), 
yet  towards  men  are  little  better  than  good  dreams,  except 
they  be  put  in  act ;  and  that  cannot  be,  without  power  and 
place  as  the  vantage  and  commanding  ground." 2  The 
Novum  Organum  by  the  Lord  Verulam,  Lord  High  Chan- 
cellor of  England,  magnificently  dedicated  to  the  King, 
(having  passed  "  the  file  of  his  Majesty's  judgment,"  and 
been  found  to  be  "  like  the  wisdom  of  God  that  passeth  all 
understanding,")  would  attract  the  attention  of  Europe  ; 
but  these  plays,  the  "  wanton  burthen  of  the  prime,"  which 
could  never  pass  the  royal  file,  must  be  thrown  upon  the 
stage  as 

"  But  hope  of  orphans,  and  unfather'd  fruit." 

1  Letter  to  Bodley. 

2  Essay  of  Great  Place. 


REASONS  FOR  CONCEALMENT.  181 

They  had  to  take  their  place,  and  stand  trial  upon  their 
own  merits,  in  the  open  theatre ;  and  this  he  knew  they 
would  do,  safely  enough,  and  work  out  their  own  salvation, 
at  least  for  the  present 

Towards  the  close  of  his  life,  the  scene  would  be  changed, 
and  the  matter  is  to  be  considered  as  it  would  then  stand 
in  his  view.  He  is  now  working  in  good  earnest  for  the 
next  ages.  He  will  first  revise,  finish,  and  republish  his 
former  works,  and  then  devote  the  remainder  of  life  to  his 
greater  philosophical  labors.  He  renounces  all  worldly 
honors,  and  mere  fame  with  his  contemporaries  loses  nearly 
all  attraction  for  him.  He  seeks  a  full  pardon  of  his  sen- 
tence, and  a  restoration  to  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
that  "  a  cloud "  may  be  lifted  from  his  name  ;  but  when, 
finally,  the  summons  comes,  his  answer  is :  "I  have  done 
with  such  vanities."  We  have  a  very  distinct  intimation  in 
his  own  words  as  to  what  his  opinion  then  was,  in  respect 
to  fame  of  this  kind  ;  for  in  his  dedicatory  epistle  to  Bishop 
Andrews,  his  "  ancient  and  private  acquaintance,"  whom 
he  held  "in  special  reverence,"  prefixed  to  that  Shake- 
spearean "  Dialogue  touching  an  Holy  War,"  written  in 
1622,  he  gives  an  explicit  account  of  his  writings  and  pur- 
poses. He  compares  his  fortunes  to  those  of  Demosthenes, 
Cicero,  and  Seneca,  and  chooses  for  himself  the  example 
of  Seneca,  like  himself,  a  learned  poet,  moralist,  statesman 
and  philosopher,  who,  being  banished  into  a  solitary  island, 
"  spent  his  time  in  writing  books  of  excellent  argument  and 
use  for  all  ages,"  having  determined,  as  he  says,  "  (where- 
unto  I  was  otherwise  inclined)  to  spend  my  time  wholly  in 
writing  ;  and  to  put  forth  that  poor  talent,  or  half  talent,  or 
what  it  is,  that  God  hath  given  me,  not  as  heretofore  to 
particular  exchanges,  but  to  banks  and  mounts  of  per- 
petuity, which  will  not  break.  Therefore,  having  not  long 
since  set  forth  a  part  of  my  Instauration,  which  is  the  work, 
that  in  mine  own  judgment  (s-t  nunquam  fallit  imago)  I  do 
most  esteem,  I  think  to  proceed  in  some  new  parts  thereof. 


182  REASONS  FOR  CONCEALMENT. 

I  have  a  purpose  therefore  (though  I  break  the 

order  of  time)  to  draw  it  down  to  the  sense,  by  some  pat- 
terns of  a  Natural  Story  or  Inquisition."  But  besides  these 
natural  stories,  which  were  probably  to  be  something  like 
the  "New  Atlantis,"  and  some  other  works  particularly 
named,  there  was  still  another  class,  for  which  the  world 
might  " scramble "  and  " set  up  a  new  English  inquisition" 
and  upon  which  he  continues  in  these  words  :  — 

"  As  for  my  Essays  and  some  other  particulars  of  that 
nature,  I  count  them  but  as  the  recreations  of  my  other 
studies,  and  in  that  sort  purpose  to  continue  them  ;  though 
I  am  not  ignorant  that  those  kind  of  writings  would  with 
less  pains  and  embracement  (perhaps)  yield  more  lustre 
and  reputation  to  my  name  than  those  other  which  I  have 
in  hand.  But  I  account  the  use  that  a  man  should  seek 
of  the  publishing  of  his  own  writings  before  his  death,  to 
be  but  an  untimely  anticipation  of  that  which  is  proper  to 
follow  a  man,  and  not  to  go  along  with  him."  1 

Again,  speaking  of  his  philosophy  in  general,  he  says :  — 
"  For  myself,  nothing  which  is  external  to  the  establish- 
ment of  its  principles  is  of  any  interest  to  me.  For  neither 
am  I  a  hungerer  after  fame,  nor  have  I,  after  the  manner  of 
heresiarchs,  any  ambition  to  originate  a  sect ;  and,  as  for 
deriving  any  private  emolument  from  such  labours,  I  should 
hold  the  thought  as  base  as  it  is  ridiculous.  Enough  for 
me  the  consciousness  of  desert,  and  that  coming  accom- 
plishment of  real  effects  which  fortune  itself  shall  not  be 
able  to  intercept" 2 

He  cares  little  now  for  any  mere  lustre  of  reputation. 
It  is  very  possible,  of  course,  that  all  these  expressions  had 
reference  only  to  some  other  prose  compositions  of  a  pop- 
ular character.  They  do  not  necessarily  amount  to  any 
positive  allusion  to  these  plays  ;  but  when  considered  with 
reference  to  the  entire  mass  of  evidence,  which  will  be  pro- 

i  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  188. 
2  Proamium,  Craik's  Bacon,  614. 


REASONS  FOR  CONCEALMENT.  183 

duced  to  prove  the  fact  that  he  was  the  author  of  them,  it 
must  strike  the  mind  of  any  reader  with  the  force  of  a  very 
pregnant  suggestion,  that  he  intended  (in  his  own  mind,  at 
least,)  to  include  them  in  the  same  category  with  the 
Essays  as  among  those  other  unnamed  particulars.  The 
work  of  revising  the  Essays  was  continued,  and  the  new 
and  enlarged  edition  appeared,  in  1625.  If  the  Folio  of 
1623  were  printed  under  his  supervision,  his  part  of  the 
work  must  have  been  still  in  progress,  if  not  entirely  com- 
pleted, at  the  date  of  this  epistle  to  Bishop  Andrews. 

His  poetical  works  were  in  the  possession  of  the  world 
as  "  Mr.  William  Shakespeare's  Comedies,  Histories,  and 
Tragedies,"  and  as  "  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  and  Poems ;  " 
and  so  he  would  let  them  remain.  They  had  had  their  trial 
already  and  stood  out  all  appeals,  and  the  wit  that  was  in 
them  could  no  more  be  hid  than  it  could  be  lost  These 
"  feigned  histories  or  speaking  pictures,"  which  had  for  one 
object,  perhaps,  "to  draw  down  to  the  sense"  of  the  theatre 
and  the  popular  mind  things  which  "  flew  too  high  over 
men's  heads  "  in  general,  in  other  forms  of  delivery,  would 
effectually  do  their  own  proper  work ;  and  they  might  be 
left  to  take  care  of  themselves.  "And  there  we  hope," 
says  the  Preface,  "  to  your  divers  capacities,  you  will  find 
enough,  both  to  draw,  and  hold  you."  For  him,  not  to  be 
understood  would  be  all  the  same  as  not  to  be  known : 
"  Read  him,  therefore,  and  again  and  again  :  And,  if  then, 
you  do  not  like  him,  surely  you  are  in  some  manifest  danger 
not  to  understand  him."  It  is  certainly  conceivable,  that  a 
mind  like  his  should  care  but  little  for  any  lustre  that  might 
be  added  to  his  name,  or  his  memory,  by  these  writings ;  or, 
at  least,  that  he  should  be  willing  to  wait  until  it  should 
shine  forth  with  an  illumination  sufficiently  brilliant  and 
clear  to  reveal  by  its  own  light  the  soul  and  genius  of  him- 
self. In  the  mean  time,  he  would  take  care  to  keep  "  the 
memory  of  so  worthy  a  Friend  and  Fellow  alive,"  as  this 
"  our  Shakespeare  "  had  come  to  be.     The  following  son- 


184  BACON  A  POET. 

net,  perhaps,  may  represent  the  true  state  of  his  mind  and 
feeling,  near  the  close  of  his  life  :  — 

"  Poor  soul,  the  centre  of  my  sinful  earth, 

Fool'd  by  these  rebel  powers  that  thee  array, 

Why  dost  thou  pine  within,  and  suffer  dearth, 

Painting  thy  outward  walls  so  costly  gay  ? 

Why  so  large  cost,  having  so  short  a  lease, 

Dost  thou  upon  thy  fading  mansion  spend  ? 

Shall  worms,  inheritors  of  this  excess, 

Eat  up  thy  charge  ?  Is  this  thy  body's  end  ? 

Then,  soul,  live  thou  upon  thy  servant's  loss, 

And  let  that  pine  to  aggravate  thy  store ; 

Buy  terms  divine  in  selling  hours  of  dross: 

Within  be  fed,  without  be  rich  no  more, 
So  shalt  thou  feed  on  death,  that  feeds  on  men, 
And  death  once  dead,  there  's  no  more  dying  then." 

Sonnet  cxlvi. 

§  6.   BACON   A   POET. 

Of  course,  if  this  theory  be  established,  there  will  be 
no  further  question  that  Francis  Bacon  was  a  poet ;  but 
the  business  here  will  be  to  consider  of  the  extraneous 
evidences  of  the  fact,  and  also  of  those  further  proofs  out 
of  the  writings  themselves,  more  immediately  connected 
with  this  part  of  the  inquiry,  which  go  to  establish  that 
fact.  We  have  already  seen  in  his  personal  history  that  he 
was,  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career,  much  in  the  habit  of 
writing  sonnets.  Some  of  them  were  addressed  to  the 
Queen,  some  were  written  for  Essex  to  be  addressed  to  her 
in  his  name,  and  one,  at  least,  was  commended  by  great 
persons ;  for,  as  he  writes  in  the  Apology  concerning 
Essex,  "  a  little  before  that  time,  being  about  the  middle 
of  Michaelmas  term  [1599],  her  majesty  had  a  purpose  to 
dine  at  my  lodge  at  Twickenham  Park,  at  which  time  I 
had,  though  I  profess  not  to  be  a  poet,  prepared  a  sonnet, 
directly  tending  and  alluding  to  draw  on  her  majesty's 
reconcilement  to  my  lord ;  which,  I  remember,  also,  I 
showed  to  a  great  person  and  one  of  my  lord's  nearest 


BACON  A  POET.  185 

friends  [Southampton  ?],  who  commended  it." l  In  the 
letter  of  advice  addressed  by  the  Earl  of  Essex  to  Sir 
Fulke  Greville  on  his  studies,  first  printed  by  Mr.  Sped- 
ding  as  written  by  Bacon,  and  palpably  one  of  the  numer- 
ous papers  drafted  by  him  for  his  patron's  use,  the  Earl  is 
made  to  say :  "  For  poets,  I  can  commend  none,  being 
resolved  to  be  ever  a  stranger  to  them." 2  However  this 
may  have  been  intended  to  be  seriously  spoken  in  character 
by  the  Earl  to  the  Knight  (who  was  himself  a  poet),  when 
considered  with  reference  to  the  actual  facts  now  known 
concerning  them  both,  it  may  be  taken  as  a  pretty  good 
joke.  Nor  need  there  be  any  wonder  that  his  sonnets  were 
commended  by  the  great,  when  we  know,  by  acknowledged 
specimens  of  his  skill  in  the  art,  that  he  was  capable  of 
writing  very  excellent  poetry.  Upon  a  review  of  his  poeti- 
cal works,  Mr.  Spedding  ventures  to  express  the  opinion, 
that  "  Bacon  was  not  without  the  fine  phrensy  of  the  poet," 
and  that,  if  it  had  taken  the  ordinary  direction,  "  it  would 
have  carried  him  to  a  place  among  the  great  poets."  * 

His  metrical  versions  of  the  Psalms  of  David,  which 
were  dedicated  to  his  friend,  the  learned  and  pious  poet, 
George  Herbert,  as  "  the  best  judge  of  Divinity  and  Poesy 
met,"  were  the  amusement  of  his  idle  hours,  during  a  time 
of  impaired  health,  in  the  spring  of  1625,  and  within  a  year 
of  his  death.  Certainly,  nothing  great,  or  very  brilliant, 
should  be  looked  for  in  these  mere  translations  into  verse. 
In  idea  and  sentiment,  he  was  absolutely  limited  to  the 
original  psalm :  nor  could  he  have  much  latitude  in  the 
expression  ;  besides  that  large  allowance  must  be  made  for 
the  necessary  difference  between  the  young  and  "strong 
imagination  "  of 

"The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet," 
of  the  "  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  "  of  the  man  of  thirty- 

l  Apology,  Works  (Phila.),  II.  336. 

9  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  II.  25. 

8  Works  (Boston),  XIV.  113. 


186  BACON  A  POET. 

three,  and  the  more  compounded  age  and  the  lassitude  of  the 
sick  old  man  of  sixty-five.  Nevertheless,  in  elegance,  ease  of 
rhythmic  flow,  and  pathetic  sweetness,  in  many  passages,  they 
are  not  unworthy  of  the  master  himself,  and  in  the  expres- 
sion and  use  of  words,  there  are  many  similitudes  with 
Shakespeare,  and  some  striking  parallel  passages  may  be 
found  in  them :  as,  for  instance,  this  one  from  the  transla- 
tion of  the  XCth  Psalm,  — 

"  As  a  tale  told,  which  sometimes  men  attend, 
And  sometimes  not,  our  life  steals  to  an  end  : " 

which  may  be  compared  with  the  following  lines  from  the 
"  King  John  "  :  — 

"  Life  is  as  tedious  as  a  twice-told  tale, 
Vexing  the  dull  ear  of  a  drowsy  man."  — Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

And  again,  in  the  same  Psalm,  we  have  these  lines :  — 

"  0  Lord,  thou  art  our  home,  to  whom  we  fly, 
And  so  hast  always  been  from  age  to  age : 
Before  the  hills  did  intercept  the  eye, 

Or  that  the  frame  was  up  of  earthly  stage, 
One  God  thou  wert,  and  art,  and  still  shall  be ; 
The  line  of  Time,  it  doth  not  measure  thee. 
Both  death  and  life  obey  thy  holy  lore, 

And  visit  in  their  turns,  as  they  are  sent ; 
A  thousand  years  with  thee,  they  are  no  more 
Than  yesterday,  which,  ere  it  is,  is  spent : 
Or  as  a  watch  by  night,  that  course  doth  keep, 
And  goes,  and  comes,  un wares  to  them  that  sleep."  l 

And  in  the  CI Vth  Psalm,  we  have  this  line :  — 

"  The  greater  navies  look  like  walking  woods." 
Now,  compare    this   with   the   following   lines  from   the 
"Macbeth":  — 

"  M ess.    I  look'd  toward  Birnam,  and  anon,  methought, 
The  wood  began  to  move 

Mac.     To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow, 
Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day, 
To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time ; 
And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death.  —  Out,  out,  brief  candle ! 

l  Works  (Boston),  XIV.  125. 


BACON  A  POET.  187 

Life '«  but  a  walking  shadow ;  a  poor  player, 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage, 
And  then  is  heard  no  more :  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

It  has  scarcely  ever  been  doubted,  among  critics,  that 
the  sonnets,  smaller  poems,  and  plays  were  the  work  of  one 
and  the  same  author ;  though  many  have  experienced 
insurmountable  difficulties  in  the  attempt  to  reconcile  the 
sonnets  with  the  life  of  the  man,  William  Shakespeare. 
The  similitudes  of  thought,  style,  and  diction,  are  such  as 
to  put  at  rest  all  question  on  that  head.  Mr.  Boswell 
doubted  whether  any  true  intimations  could  be  drawn  from 
the  Sonnets  of  Shakespeare,  respecting  the  life  and  feelings 
of  the  author :  certainly  no  such  doubt  could  have  arisen 
in  his  mind,  if  he  had  considered  them  as  the  work  of 
Francis  Bacon.  In  respect  of  ideas,  opinions,  modes  of 
thinking  and  feeling,  style,  manner,  and  language,  they  bear 
the  impress  of  Bacon's  mind,  especially  in  the  first  half  of 
his  life  ;  and  they  exhibit  states  of  mind  and  feeling,  which 
will  find  an  explanation  nowhere  better  than  in  his  personal 
history.  Many  of  them  show  the  strongest  internal  evidence 
of  their  having  been  addressed  to  the  Queen,  as  they  no 
doubt  were.  Bacon  tells  us,  that  "  she  was  very  willing  to 
be  courted,  wooed,  and  to  have  sonnets  made  in  her  com- 
mendation "  ;  1  and,  as  we  know,  he  was  himself  notoriously 
given  to  the  writing  of  sonnets  to  this  "  mistress'  eyebrow." 
Some  of  them  may  have  been  addressed  to  his  young  friend, 
Mr.  William  Herbert  (Earl  of  Pembroke),  and  others  may 
find  a  fitting  interpretation  in  the  circumstances  and  events 
of  his  own  actual  life,  in  his  own  inward  thought  and  feel- 
ing, and  in  his  own  enterprises  of  love,  which  continued  to 
a  late  day,  though  this  Petrarch  worshipped  no  particular 
Laura.  The  first  small  collection  of  sonnets  and  minor 
poems  was  published  by  Jaggard,  in  1599,  under  the  title 
of  the  "  Passionate  Pilgrim,"  but  the  full  edition  of  the 
l  In  Mem.  Biz.,  Works  (Mont.),  III.  477. 


188  BACON  A  POET. 

Sonnets  was  dedicated  to  "Mr.  W.  H."  in  1609,  when 
Shakespeare  was  in  his  forty-sixth,  and  Bacon  in  the  forty- 
ninth  year  of  his  age.  Even  the  difficulty  of  Mr.  Boswell, 
however,  that  a  man  of  forty-five  should  write  such  sonnets 
as  the  LXXIIId,  may  disappear,  when  it  is  considered  that 
Bacon  was  married  in  his  forty-sixth  year,  and  that  even  in 
1609,  when  so  nearly  fifty,  thoughts  of  love  and  "yellow 
leaves  "  may  very  well  have  come  together. 

In  1594,  the  Solicitor's  place  having  become  vacant, 
Bacon's  suit  for  it  was  urgently  pressed  by  Essex  and  others 
of  his  friends.  Without  preferment  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
three,  and  still  hesitating  whether  he  should  not  devote 
himself  wholly  to  studies  and  a  private  life,  he  felt  this  to 
be  an  important  crisis  in  his  fortunes  ;  nearly  all  his  hopes 
looking  to  a  public  career  were  staked  upon  it.  The  Queen 
had  been  personally  well-disposed  towards  him,  but  she  had 
conceived  a  high  displeasure  at  his  course  in  Parliament  on 
the  subsidies,  and  he  was  now  excluded  from  her  presence  ; 
and  the  zeal  of  Essex  in  his  behalf,  insisting  upon  it  as  a 
special  favor  to  himself,  and  as  perhaps  affording  some 
countenance  to  his  party,  seems  still  further  to  have  marred 
the  whole  business.  She  was  determined  not  to  yield  her 
own  will  to  the  pride  of  Essex,  and  hesitated,  perhaps,  to 
raise  to  so  high  a  place  in  the  state  the  known  adherent 
and  friend  of  the  great  earl,  who,  although  the  grandson  of 
her  cousin,  and  a  favorite  thus  far,  was  yet  a  descendant  in 
the  line  of  Edward  III.,  whose  ambitious  head  was  capable 
of  projects  looking  to  her  very  throne.  So,  at  last,  when 
he  had  been  "  voiced  with  great  expectation,"  and  had  had 
"  the  honorable  testimony  of  so  many  counsellors,"  and  "  the 
wishes  of  most  men  "  even  for  the  higher  place  of  Attorney- 
General,  the  Queen  "  did  fly  the  tilt,"  says  Essex,  and  it 
was  fixed,  that  Serjeant  Fleming  should  be  made  Solicitor ; 
and,  as  we  learn  from  himself,  "  no  man  ever  read  a  more 
exquisite  disgrace  "  than  Francis  Bacon.  No  longer  "  able 
to  endure  the  sun,"  he  "  fled  into  the  shade  "  at  Twicken- 


BACON  A  POET.  189 

ham  Park,  the  lovely  country-seat  of  his  brother  Edward, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  where  he  kept  his  "  lodge," 
his  papers,  and  his  books,  and  whither  he  was  accustomed 
to  retire  whenever  he  could  escape  from  Gray's  Inn,  and 
the  bustle  of  the  city,  or  desired  to  find  the  most  favored 
retreat  of  the  Muses.  He  had  resolved  thus,  if  rejected  : 
"  I  will  by  God's  assistance,  with  this  disgrace  of  my  fortune, 
and  yet  with  the  comfort  of  the  good  opinion  of  so  many 
honorable  and  worthy  persons,  retire  myself  with  a  couple 
of  men  to  Cambridge,  and  there  spend  my  life  in  studies 
and  contemplations,  without  looking  back."  ■ 

Something  like  this  same  voicing  appears  in  the  "  Hamlet," 
thus :  — 

"  Ros.  Good  my  Lord,  what  is  your  cause  of  distemper?  You  do,  surely, 
bar  the  door  of  your  liberty,  if  you  deny  your  griefs  to  your  friend. 

Ham.     Sir,  I  lack  advancement. 

Ros.  How  can  that  be,  when  you  have  the  voice  of  the  King  himself  for 
your  succession  in  Denmark  V 

Ham.  Ay,  sir,  but  '  while  the  grass  grows,'  — the  proverb  is  something 
musrj%"  —  Act  111.  Sc.  2. 

Again,  says  the  "  Timon  "  :  — 

"  Is  this  the  Athenian  minion  whom  the  world 
Voiced  so  regardfully  ?  "  — Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

The  "  Hamlet "  continues  :  — 

"  King.    How  fares  our  cousin  Hamlet? 

Ham.  Excellent,  i'  faith;  of  the  cameleon's  dish:  I  eat  the  air,  promise- 
cramm'd.    You  cannot  feed  capons  so."  —  Act  111.  Sc.  2. 

So,  says  Bacon,  of  the  chameleon :  "  He  feedeth  not  only 
upon  air,  (though  that  be  his  principal  sustenance,)  yet  some 
that  have  kept  cameleons  a  whole  year  together,  would 
never  perceive  that  ever  they  fed  upon  anything  else  but 
air  "  ;  2  and  this  idea  of  the  chameleon's  feeding  on  air  is 
found  in  the  "  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  thus :  — 

"  Sic.    What,  angry.  Sir  Thurio?  do  you  change  colour? 
Vol.    Give  me  leave,  madam ;  he  is  a  kind  of  cameleon. 

»  Letter,  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  170;  Spedding,  I.  291. 
a  Nat.  Hist.  §  360. 


190  BACOX  A  POET. 

Thur.  That  hath  more  mind  to  feed  on  your  blood,  than  live  in  your 
air."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

The  "  Hamlet "  continues :  — 

"  Ham.    My  lord,  you  play'd  once  in  the  University,  you  say  ? 

[To  Polonius. 
Pol.    That  I  did,  my  lord ;  and  was  accounted  a  good  actor. 
Ham.    And  what  did  you  enact? 

Pol.  I  did  enact  Julius  Caesar:  I  was  kill'd  i'  the  Capitol;  Brutus  kill'd 
me."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  there  is  something  like  the  sound  of  a  reminiscence 
in  this  expression  of  Bacon  :  "  Nay,  even  two  or  three  days 
ago,  Bernardinus  Telesius  mounted  the  stage,  and  enacted 
a  new  play."  1 

Further,  when  Hamlet  had  instructed  the  players  how  to 
speak  the  speech  of  some  dozen  or  sixteen  lines,  which 
he  would  set  down  and  insert  in  the  play,  and  the  speech 
had  taken  effect,  according  to  his  expectation,  the  first  re- 
mark that  pops  into  his  head  is  this  very  curious  one  :  — 

"  Would  not  this,  sir,  and  a  forest  of  feathers,  (if  the  rest  of  my  fortunes 
turn  Turk  with  me,)  with  two  Provincial  roses  on  my  raz'd  shoes,  get  me  a 
fellowship  in  a  cry  of  players,  sir?  "  — Hamlet,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

Is  it,  then,  so  very  wonderful,  that  these  ideas  of  the 
University  and  a  couple  of  men,  and  a  fellowship  with  two 
Provincial  roses  in  his  shoes,  and  a  forest  of  feathers, 
should  be  running  in  the  same  head,  at  times  not  far  apart  ? 
When  Buckingham  is  about  to  fleece  him  of  his  "  forest " 
at  Gorhambury,  he  replies,  "  I  will  not  be  stripped  of  my 
feathers." 

In  the  mean  time,  the  usual  tenor  of  his  thoughts  had 
been  seriously  interrupted,  and  his  whole  heart  saddened. 
Deep  in  debt  and  Jews'  bonds,  with  his  prospect  for  pro- 
motion thus  fatally  darkened,  he  was  on  the  point  of  giving 
up  in  despair :  even  his  studies  failed  to  afford  relief.  It 
seemed  to  him,  that  "  the  old  anthem  might  never  be  more 
truly  sung  :  Totus  mundus  in  maligno  positus  est "  ;  2  and 

i  Int.  of  Nat.  Works  (Mont),  XV.  100. 
2  Letter. 


BACON  A  POET.  191 

again  he  writes :  "  But  casting  the  worst  of  my  fortune  with 
an  honorable  friend  that  had  long  used  me  privately,  I  told 
his  Lordship  of  this  my  purpose  to  travel,  accompanying 
it  with  these  very  words,  that  upon  her  Majesty's  rejecting 
me  with  such  circumstance,  though  my  heart  might  be  good, 
yet  mine  eyes  would  be  sore  that  I  should  take  no  pleasure 
to  look  upon  my  friends ;  for  that  I  was  not  an  impudent 
man,  that  could  face  out  a  disgrace  ;  and  yet  I  hoped  her 
Majesty  would  not  be  offended,  if  not  being  able  to  endure 
the  sun,  I  fled  into  the  shade."  1  And  thus  sings  the  son- 
net :  — 

"  When  in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes, 
I  all  alone  beweep  my  outcast  state, 
And  trouble  deaf  heaven  with  my  bootless  cries, 
And  look  upon  myself  and  curse  my  fate, 
Wishing  me  like  to  one  more  rich  in  hope, 
Featur'd  like  him,  like  him  with  friends  possess'd, 
Desiring  this  man's  art,  and  that  man's  scope, 
With  what  I  most  enjoy  contented  least."  —  Sonnet  xxix. 

After  a  short  retirement  at  Essex's  house,  and  within  his 
own  private  lodge  at  Twickenham,  where,  as  he  says,  he 
"  once  again  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  contemplation  in  that 
sweet  solitariness,  which  collecteth  the  mind,  as  shutting  the 
eyes  doth  the  sight,"  he  began  to  see  and  acknowledge 
"  the  providence  of  God  "  towards  him,  and  concluded  that 
he  had  taken  "  duty  too  exactly  "  and  not  "  according  to  the 
dregs  of  this  age,"  finding  it  on  the  whole  most  wise  and 
expedient  to  bear  the  yoke  in  his  youth  —  "  tolerare  jugum 
in  juventiUe " ; 2  so  that  at  length  being  called  to  some 
service  by  the  Queen,  in  which  he  was  detained  by  sickness 
at  Huntingdon,  he  writes  to  her  Majesty  thus :  "  This 
present  arrest  of  mine  by  his  Divine  Majesty  from  your 
Majesty's  service,  is  not  the  least  affliction  I  have  proved  ; 
and  I  hope  your  Majesty  doth  conceive,  that  nothing  under 
mere  impossibility  could  have  detained  me  from  earning  so 

l  Letter  to  Cecil  (1594-5).     Spedding's  Let.  and  Life,  I.  350. 
8  Letter  to  the  Queen ;  Spedding's  Let.  and  Life,  I.  304. 


192  BACON  A  POET. 

gracious  a  vail,  as  it  pleased  your  Majesty  to  give  me."  1 
Again,  from  the  same  retreat  on  the  Thames,  he  entreats 
her  Majesty  not  to  impute  his  "  absence  to  any  weakness 
of  mind  or  unworthiness."  2  And  much  in  the  same  spirit 
runs  this  sonnet :  — 

"  Being  your  slave,  what  should  I  do  but  tend 
Upon  the  hours  and  times  of  your  desire? 
I  have  no  precious  time  at  all  to  spend, 
Nor  services  to  do,  till  you  require. 
Nor  dare  I  chide  the  world-without-end  hour, 
Whilst  I  (my  sovereign)  watch  the  clock  for  you, 
Nor  think  the  bitterness  of  absence  sour, 
When  you  have  bid  your  servant  once  adieu. 
Nor  dare  I  question  with  my  jealous  thought 
Where  you  may  be,  or  your  affairs  suppose, 
But,  like  a  sad  slave,  stay  and  think  of  naught, 
Save  where  you  are,  how  happy  you  make  those. 

So  true  a  fool  is  love,  that  in  your  Will, 

(Though  you  do  anything)  he  thinks  no  ill."  —  Sonnet  lvii. 

And  again,  — 

"  I  am  to  wait,  though  waiting  so  be  hell, 
Nor  blame  your  pleasure,  be  it  ill  or  well."  —  Sonnet  lviii. 

His  comfort  was,  however,  that  he  knew  (as  he  had  writ- 
ten to  Essex)  that  her  Majesty  took  "  delight  and  content- 
ment in  executing  this  disgrace  upon  him  "  ;  nor  did  he 
think  that  "  after  a  quintessence  of  wormwood  "  her  Majesty 
would  take  "  so  large  a  draft  of  poppy  "  as  to  pass  "  many 
summers  without  all  feeling  of  his  sufferings  "  ; 8  — 

"Ham.     [Aside.']     Wormwood,  wormwood 

And  yet,  to  me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust  V  "  —  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

as  when  the  king  in  the  play  threatened  to  let  loose  upon 
Bertram  his  revenge  and  hate,  — 

"  Without  all  terms  of  pity."  —  All  '$  Well,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 
And  again  the  sonnet  sings  :  — 

"  What  potions  have  I  drunk  of  siren  tears, 
DistilFd  from  limbecks  foul  as  hell  within, 

1  Letter,  July  20, 1594;    Works  (Mont.),  XIII.  81. 

2  Letter  to  the  Queen;   Works  (Mont.),  XII.  170. 
8  Letter;    Works  (Mont.),  XII.  167. 


BACON  A  POET.  193 

Applying  fears  to  hopes,  and  hopes  to  fears, 

Still  losing  when  I  saw  myself  to  win  ?  "  —  Sonnet  cxix. 

And  thus,  again  :  — 

"  0  for  my  sake  do  you  with  fortune  chide, 
The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds, 
That  did  not  better  for  my  life  provide, 
Than  public  means,  which  public  manners  breeds. 
Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand, 
And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand. 
Pity  me,  then,  and  wish  I  were  renew'd, 
Whilst,  like  a  willing  patient,  I  will  drink 
Potions  of  eysell,  'gainst  my  strong  infection. 
No  bitterness  that  I  will  bitter  think, 
Nor  double  penance  to  correct  correction."  —  Sonnet  cxi. 

"  Your  love  and  pity  doth  the  impression  fill, 
Which  vulgar  scandal  stamp'd  upon  my  brow."  —  Sonnet  cxii. 

"  I  told  her,"  writes  Essex  to  Bacon,  (26th  March,  1594,) 
"  how  much  you  were  thrown  down  with  the  correction  she 
had  already  given  you." 

About  this  time  (1595),  we  find  him  writing  again : 
"  For  to  be  as  I  told  you,  like  a  child  following  a  bird, 
which,  when  he  is  nearest,  flieth  away  and  lighteth  a  little 
before,  and  then  the  child  after  it  again,  and  so  in  infini- 
tum ;  I  am  weary  of  it."  *  So  moaned  the  "  tired  seasick 
suitor,"  as  he  describes  himself  in  another  letter ; a  and  very 
like,  again,  is  the  tone  of  the  sonnet,  — 

"  Tir'd  with  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry,  — 
As  to  behold  desert  a  beggar  born, 
And  needy  nothing  trim'd  in  jollity, 
And  purest  faith  unhappily  forsworn, 
And  gilded  honour  shamefully  misplac'd, 
And  maiden  virtue  rudely  strumpeted, 
And  right  perfection  wrongfully  disgrac'd, 
And  strength  by  limping  sway  disabled, 
And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority, 

i  Letter  to  Greville,  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  161;  Letters  and  Life,  Spedding, 
I.  359. 

2  Letter  to  Burghley  (21  March,  1594-5),  (Mont.),  XII.  475;  Spedding, 
1.360. 

13 


194  BACON  A   POET. 

And  folly  (doctor-like)  controlling  skill, 

And  simple  truth  miscall'd  simplicity, 

And  captive  Good  attending  captain  111. 

Tir'd  with  all  these,  from  these  would  I  be  gone, 

Save  that,  to  die,  I  leave  my  love  alone."  —  Sonnet  lxvi. 

And  the  same  expression  creeps  into  the  "  Richard  II.," 
written  soon  afterwards,  thus  :  — 

"  Patience  is  stale,  and  I  am  weary  of  it."  — Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

But  lest  an  unfavorable  impression  should  get  abroad, 
and  even  become  fixed  in  her  Majesty's  mind,  on  account 
of  his  unwonted  absence  from  court,  in  these  years,  he 
writes  again  an  express  letter  to  the  Lord  Keeper,  dated 
May  25th,  1595,  from  his  retreat  at  Twickenham  Park, 
desiring  his  Lordship  to  explain  matters  in  that  quarter, 
which  runs  thus  :  — 

"  I  thought  good  to  step  aside  for  nine  days,  which  is  the 
durance  of  a  wonder,  and  not  for  any  dislike  in  the  world  ; 
for  I  think  her  Majesty  hath  done  me  as  great  a  favour  in 
making  an  end  of  this  matter,  as  if  she  had  enlarged  me 
from  some  restraint.  And  I  humbly  pray  your  Lordship,  if 
it  so  please  you,  to  deliver  to  her  Majesty  from  me,  that  I 
would  have  been  glad  to  have  done  her  Majesty  service  now 
in  the  best  of  my  years,  and  the  same  mind  remains  in  me 
still ;  and  that  it  may  be,  when  her  Majesty  hath  tried 
others,  she  will  think  of  him  that  she  hath  cast  aside.  For 
I  will  take  it  upon  that  which  her  Majesty  hath  often  said, 
that  she  doth  reserve  me,  and  not  reject  me."  1 

Which   same   wonder   will   appear   again   in   the   play, 

thus :  — 

"  Glos.    That  would  be  ten  days'  wonder,  at  the  least. 
Clar.    That 's  a  day  longer  than  a  wonder  lasts. 
Gbs.     By  so  much  is  the  wonder  in  extremes." 

3  Hen.  VI.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  again,  thus,  in  the  "  As  You  Like  It "  :  — 

"Ros.  I  was  seven  of  the  nine  days  out  of  the  wonder  before  you  came."  — 
Act.  III.  Sc.  2. 

i  Letter,  Works  (Mont),  XIII.  53;  Spedd.  I.  360. 


BACON  A  POET.  195 

By  November  following,  this  great  grief  is  forgotten,  and 
we  find  him  returned  to  his  better  moods,  and  assisting 
Essex  in  getting  up  a  magnificent  display,  at  his  own  house, 
for  her  Majesty's  entertainment  on  the  anniversary  of  her 
accession.  Bacon  puts  in  requisition  all  the  powers  of  the 
Muses,  and  writes  a  Masque  to  be  exhibited  before  her. 
Fleming  had  received  his  commission  as  Solicitor,  on  the 
5th  of  this  month,  and  twelve  days  afterwards,  the  Queen 
had  granted  to  Bacon,  under  the  Privy  Seal,  in  addition  to 
the  princely  gifts  he  had  previously  received  at  her  hands, 
the  reversion  of  the  lease  of  Twickenham  Park  itself, 
delightfully  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  within 
sight  of  her  Majesty's  palace  of  "Whitehall,  with  an  agree- 
able mansion,  park,  and  garden,  and  a  goodly  expanse  of 
lawn  and  pasture,  lake  and  orchard,  mead  and  field,  —  "a 
home  for  a  prince,"  says  Mr.  Dixon.1  And  hither  her 
Majesty  comes  in  person,  upon  occasion,  to  dine  with  her 
courtly  admirer,  and  have  a  spice  of  his  wit  in  his  own 
Arcadian  lodge. 

The  speeches  that  were  written  for  this  Masque,  as  any 
one  may  see,  are  conceived  in  his  own  best  manner  and 
decidedly  in  the  Shakespearean  vein.  This  specimen  from 
the  Hermit's  speech  in  the  presence  will  show  his  concep- 
tion of  "the  sweet  travelling  through  universal  variety," 
which  will  demand  our  particular  attention  :  — 

"  For  I  wish  him  to  leave  turning  over  the  book  of  for- 
tune, which  is  but  a  play  for  children,  when  there  be  so 
many  books  of  truth  and  knowledge  better  worthy  the 
revolving,  and  not  fix  his  view  only  upon  a  picture  in  a 
little  table,  where  there  be  so  many  tables  of  histories,  yea 
to  the  life,  excellent  to  behold  and  admire.  Whether  he 
believe  me  or  no,  there  is  no  prison  to  the  thoughts,  which 
are  free  under  the  greatest  tyrants.  Shall  any  man  make 
his  conceit  as  an  anchor,  mured  up  within  the  compass  of 
one  beauty  or  person,  that  may  have  the  liberty  of  all 
l  Pert.  Hist.,  79,  108. 


196  BACON  A  POET. 

contemplation?  Shall  he  exchange  the  sweet  travelling 
through  the  universal  variety  for  one  wearisome  and  end- 
less round  or  labyrinth  ?  Let  thy  master,  Squire,  offer  his 
service  to  the  Muses.  It  is  long  since  they  received  any 
into  their  court.  They  give  alms  continually  at  their  gate, 
that  many  come  to  live  upon  ;  but  few  they  have  ever 
admitted  into  their  palace.  There  shall  he  find  secrets  not 
dangerous  to  know,  sides  and  parties  not  factious  to  hold, 
precepts  and  commandments  not  penal  to  disobey.  The 
gardens  of  love  wherein  he  now  playeth  himself  are  fresh 
to-day  and  fading  to-morrow,  as  the  sun  comforts  them  or  is 
turned  from  them.  But  the  gardens  of  the  Muses  keep 
the  privilege  of  the  golden  age  ;  they  ever  flourish  and  are 
in  league  with  time.  The  monuments  of  wit  survive  the 
monuments  of  power :  the  verses  of  the  poet  endure  with- 
out a  syllable  lost,  while  states  and  empires  pass  many 
periods.  Let  him  not  think  he  shall  descend,  for  he  is  now 
upon  a  hill  as  a  ship  is  mounted  upon  the  ridge  of  a  wave ; 
but  that  hill  of  the  Muses  is  above  tempests,  always  clear 
and  calm ;  a  hill  of  the  goodliest  discovery  that  man  can 
have,  being  a  prospect  upon  all  the  errors  and  wanderings 
of  the  present  and  former  times.  Yea,  in  some  cliff  it 
leadeth  the  eye  beyond  the  horizon  of  time,  and  giveth  no 
obscure  divination  of  times  to  come.  So  that  if  he  will 
indeed  lead  vitam  vitalem,  a  life  that  unites  safety  and  dig- 
nity, pleasure  and  merit ;  if  he  will  win  admiration  without 
envy  ;  if  he  will  be  in  the  feast  and  not  in  the  throng  ;  in 
the  light  and  not  in  the  heat ;  let  him  embrace  the  life  of 
study  and  contemplation.  And  if  he  will  accept  of  no 
other  reason,  yet  because  the  gift  of  the  Muses  will  en- 
worthy  him  in  his  love,  and  where  he  now  looks  on  his  mis- 
tress' outside  with  the  eyes  of  sense,  which  are  dazzled  and 
amazed,  he  shall  then  behold  her  high  perfections  and  heav- 
enly mind  with  the  eyes  of  judgment,  which  grow  stronger 
by  more  nearly  and  more  directly  viewing  such  an  object." 1 
i  Masque,  Works  (Philad.),  II.  533;  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  1. 379. 


BACON  A  POET.  197 

"Watching  closely,  we  shall  discover  traces  of  this  same 
cliff  and  hill  of  the  Muses,  in  several  places,  in  both  these 
writings.  Indeed  there  are  many  considerations  which 
favor  the  supposition,  that  Bacon  was  privately  devoted  to 
the  Muses.  The  cast  of  his  genius  was  poetical.  His  prose 
writings  almost  everywhere  exhibit  the  highest  qualities 
of  the  poet,  —  a  philosophic  depth  of  insight,  a  luminous 
and  powerful  imagination,  a  bold  and  brilliant  grasp  of 
metaphor,  a  crystalline  clearness,  brevity,  and  beauty 
of  expression,  and  such  sovereignty  in  all  the  realms  of 
thought  and  knowledge,  and  such  command  of  language, 
as  made  all  nature  and  the  entire  compass  of  the  English 
tongue  (which  he  enlarged  from  the  Latin)  tributary  to  his 
purposes  ;  and  this  is  precisely  what  has  always  been  recog- 
nized as  one  of  the  wonders  of  Shakespeare.  From  the 
very  beginning  of  his  career,  he  had  taken  all  knowledge 
to  be  his  province,  and  he  had  explored  nearly  every  depart- 
ment of  it  that  was  open  to  him  in  his  day.  He  had,  more- 
over, attained  to  very  correct  ideas  of  the  nature,  objects, 
and  uses  of  poetry :  perhaps  no  man  ever  had  better. 

In  his  Description  of  the  Intellectual  Globe,  he  says, 
"  We  adopt  that  division  of  human  learning,  which  is  cor- 
relative to  the  three  faculties  of  the  intellect.  We  there- 
fore set  down  its  parts  as  three :  History,  Poesy,  and 
Philosophy  :  —  history  has  reference  to  memory  ;  poesy  to 
imagination ;  philosophy  to  reason.  By  poesy,  in  this  place, 
we  mean  nothing  else  than  feigned  history."  1  In  the  Ad- 
vancement, he  makes  three  divisions  of  Poesy :  Narrative, 
Eepresentative,  and  Allusive.  The  Narrative  is  "  a  mere 
imitation  of  history,  with  the  excesses  before  remembered ; 
choosing  for  subject  commonly  wars  and  love,  rarely  state, 
and  sometimes  pleasure  or  mirth."  The  Allusive,  or  para- 
bolical, applied  to  some  special  purpose  or  conceit,  "  was 
much  more  in  use  in  ancient  times,  as  by  the  fables  of 
iEsop,   and   the   brief  sentences   of  the    Seven,  and   the 

1   Works  (Mont.),  XII.  150. 


198  BACON  A  POET. 

use  of  hieroglyphics  may  appear."  But  the  Representative 
"  is  as  a  visible  history ;  and  is  an  image  of  actions  as  if 
they  were  present,  as  history  is  of  actions  in  nature  as  they 
are,  that  is  past ; " *  and  it  is  under  this  head,  of  course, 
that  we  may  infer  he  would  bring  dramatic  poetry :  in  the 
De  Augmentis,  he  expressly  designates  the  three  kinds  as 
"  aut  Narrativa,  aut  Dramattca,  aut  Parabolical  2 

"  Mr.  William  Shakespeare's  Comedies,  Histories,  and 
Tragedies  "  are  precisely  such  feigned  histories,  representa- 
tive visible  histories,  or  speaking  pictures,  as  are  here  sup- 
posed. Bacon's  philosophical,  political,  and  legal  writings, 
were  his  labors :  the  Essays  and  certain  "  other  unnamed 
particulars  of  that  kind  "  (in  which  we  may  include  his 
tributes  to  the  Muses),  were  the  recreations  of  his  other 
studies ;  for,  says  he,  "  all  science  is  the  labor  and  handi- 
craft of  the  mind :  poetry  can  only  be  considered  its  recre- 
ation." 8  Of  poesy  in  general,  he  says,  "  it  is  a  part  of 
learning  in  measure  of  words  for  the  most  part  restrained, 
but  in  all  other  points  extremely  licensed,  and  doth  truly 
refer  to  the  imagination ;  which,  being  not  tied  to  the  laws 
of  matter,  may  at  pleasure  join  that  which  nature  hath 
severed,  and  sever  that  which  nature  hath  joined,  and  so 
make  unlawful  matches  and  divorces  of  things  :  Pictoribus 
atque  poetis,  &c."     So,  we  remember,  — 

"  The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet, 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact." 

In  respect  of  words,  again,  it  is  but  "  one  of  the  arts  of 
speech,"  but  in  respect  of  matter,  "  it  is  one  of  the  principal 
portions  of  learning,  and  is  nothing  else  but  feigned  history, 
which  may  be  styled  as  well  in  prose  as  in  verse.  The  use 
of  this  feigned  history  hath  been  to  give  some  shadow  of 
satisfaction  to  the  mind  of  man  in  those  points  wherein  the 
nature  of  things  doth  deny  it,  the  world  being  in  proportion 

1  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Book  II. 

2  Lib.  II.  c.  13. 

«  Int.  Globe,  Works  (Mont.),  XV.  150. 


BACON  A  POET.  199 

inferior  to  the  soul ;  by  reason  whereof  there  is,  agreeable  to 
the  spirit  of  man,  a  more  ample  greatness,  a  more  exact  good- 
ness, and  a  more  absolute  variety,  than  can  be  found  in  the 
nature  of  things.  Therefore,  because  the  acts  or  events  of 
true  history  have  not  that  magnitude  which  satisfieth  the 
mind  of  man,  poesy  feigneth  acts  and  events  greater  and 
more  heroical :  because  true  history  propoundeth  the  suc- 
cesses and  issues  of  actions  not  so  agreeable  to  the  merits 
of  virtue  and  vice,  therefore  poesy  feigns  them  more  just 
in  retribution,  and  more  according  to  revealed  providence  : 
because  true  history  representeth  actions  and  events  more 
ordinary,  and  less  interchanged,  therefore  poesy  endueth 
them  with  more  rareness,  and  more  unexpected  and  alterna- 
tive variations  :  so  as  it  appeareth  that  poesy  serveth  and 
conferreth  to  magnanimity,  morality,  and  delectation.  And 
therefore  it  was  ever  thought  to  have  some  participation  of 
divineness,  because  it  doth  raise  and  erect  the  mind,  by 
submitting  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind ; 
whereas  reason  doth  buckle  and  bow  the  mind  unto  the 
nature  of  things.  And  we  see,  that  by  these  insinuations 
and  congruities  with  man's  nature  and  pleasure,  joined 
also  with  the  agreement  and  consort  it  hath  with  music,  it 
hath  had  access  and  estimation  in  rude  times  and  barbar- 
ous regions,  where  other  learning  stood  excluded."  1 

Surely,  this  is  such  an  account  of  the  true  nature,  scope, 
and  use  of  poetry,  as  might  be  expected  to  come  from  the 
author  of  those  illustrative  and  imperishable  examples  of 
these  very  doctrines,  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  The  ex- 
cellent critical  judgment  of  Professor  Gervinus  did  not  fail 
to  discover,  that  "  Shakespeare  appears  to  have  entertained 
the  same  views  with  Lord  Bacon."  a  Delia  Bacon  made 
the  same  discovery.  In  fact,  these  plays  constitute  a  new 
and  altogether  superior  kind  of  dramatic  writing.  "  They 
are,"  says  Coleridge,  "  in  the  ancient  sense,  neither  trag- 
edies, nor  comedies,  nor  both  in  one,  but  a  different  genus, 
i  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Book  II.  2  Shakes.  Com.,  II.  549. 


200  BACON   A  POET. 

diverse  in  kind,  and  not  merely  different  in  degree.  They 
may  be  called  romantic  dramas,  or  dramatic  romances."  1 
We  may  as  well  call  them,  at  once,  representative  visible 
histories,  or  speaking  pictures,  illustrative  examples,  or 
types  and  models  of  the  whole  process  of  the  mind  and  the 
continuous  frame  and  order  of  discovery  in  particular  sub- 
jects, the  most  dignified,  selected  for  their  variety  and  im- 
portance, after  the  manner  of  Francis  Bacon,  and  in  the 
most  consummate  style  of  the  art  which  mends  nature. 
Verily,  this  critical  exposition  by  Bacon  himself  would 
seem  to  furnish  an  explicit  and  satisfactory  interpretation 
of  his  own  actual  meaning  (first  propounded  by  Delia 
Bacon),  when  he  speaks,  in  the  introduction  to  the  Fourth 
Part  of  the  Great  Installation,  of  those  '"  illustrative  ex- 
amples "  and  "  actual  types  and  models  "  in  immediate  con- 
nection with  the  subject  of  that  "  true  art "  which  "  is 
always  capable  of  advancing." 

He  also  understood  that  further  use  of  poetry  allusive  or 
parabolical,  one  object  of  which  was,  "  to  retire  and  ob- 
scure," as  well  as  "  to  demonstrate  and  illustrate,"  what  is 
"  to  be  taught  or  delivered  ; "  that  is,  "  when  the  secrets  and 
mysteries  of  religion,  policy,  or  philosophy,  are  involved  in 
fables  or  parables."  This  use  of  poetry  is  certainly  not  with- 
out ample  illustration  in  the  greater  plays  of  Shakespeare. 
Some  of  them  teach  things  never  dreamed  of  in  the  ordinary 
philosophy,  much  less  in  any  that  can  well  be  ascribed  to 
William  Shakespeare,  or  any  man  that  ever  lived  with  a  per- 
sonal history  like  his  ;  not  to  speak  of  the  many  lesser  here- 
sies, Arian  or  other,  for  which  sundry  Bartholomew  Legates 
were  burned  at  a  stake,  in  those  days,  and,  for  the  like  of 
which,  in  plain  prose,  the  Royal  Thunderer  would  hurl  his 
fulminations  against  Vorstius,  even  across  the  English  Chan- 
nel. No  man  knew  better  than  Bacon  how  few  persons  in 
his  own  age,  or  perhaps  in  almost  any  other,  would  be  found 
capable  of  appreciating,  or  even  understanding  at  all,  the 
1  Progress  of  the  Drama,  Works  of  Coleridge,  IV.  35. 


BACON  A  POET.  201 

Novum  Organum  and  his  deeper  philosophical  works.  The 
secrets  contained  in  these  were  sufficiently  obscured  from 
the  vulgar  by  the  very  character  of  the  writings  themselves. 
But  he  was  also,  not  only  fully  aware  of  the  great  value  of 
the  poetical  form  of  delivery,  but  able  to  make  good  and 
effectual  use  of  it,  for  the  purpose  of  withdrawing  opinions, 
doctrines,  secrets,  and  mysteries  from  the  reach  of  vulgar 
censure  and  public  persecution,  while  yet  communicating 
them  with  sufficient  clearness  to  the  initiated,  who  might 
have  an  eye  to  see,  and,  at  the  same  time,  with  a  certain 
prophetic  indistinctness  and  general  effect,  to  the  common 
mind  of  the  theatre,  which  might  thereby  be  instructed, 
until,  at  length,  it  should  find  its  old  errors  and  superstitions 
undermined,  without  knowing  that  they  had  been  attacked  ; 
somewhat  in  the  same  manner  as  Euripides  and  other 
ancient  poets,  and  even  Dante,  Milton,  and  Goethe,  among 
the  moderns,  assailed  the  -superstitious  mythology  and 
erroneous  popular  notions  of  the  ages  in  which  they  lived. 
Indeed,  we  learn  from  himself,  that  "  born  in  an  age  when 
religion  was  in  no  very  prosperous  state,"  he  had  endeavored 
to  rise  to  civil  dignities,  for  one  thing,  in  order  that,  by  the 
exercise  of  his  genius,  he  might  the  better  "  effect  some- 
thing which  would  be  profitable  for  the  salvation  of  souls." 
He  dreaded  "  no  incursions  of  barbarians  "  in  his  time,  but 
he  foresaw  that  "  civil  wars  "  were  about  to  arise,  involving 
many  countries,  and  "  that  from  the  malignity  of  religious 
sects,  and  from  those  compendious  systems  of  artifice  and 
caution  "  which  had  "  crept  into  the  place  of  erudition,"  no 
less  "  a  tempest "  was  impending  "  over  literature  and 
science."  * 

He  kept  this  general  purpose  in  view  in  all  his  writings. 
Speaking  of  the  Great  Instauration,  he  says,  "  yet,  never 
theless,  I  have  just  cause  to  doubt,  that  it  flies  too  high  over 
men's  heads  ;  have  a  purpose  therefore,  though  I  break  the 
order  of  time,  to  draw  it  down  to  the  sense,  by  some  pat- 
l  Procemium :  Craik's  Bacon,  612-13. 


202  BACON  A  POET. 

terns  of  a  Natural  Story  or  Inquisition."  x  Towards  the 
close  of  his  life,  was  written  the  "  New  Atlantis  "  (published 
after  his  death),  which  was  doubtless  one  of  those  patterns 
of  a  natural  story,  or  feigned  history,  "  devised,"  says  Dr. 
Rawley,  "  to  the  end  that  he  might  exhibit  therein  a  model 
or  description  of  a  College,  instituted  for  the  interpreting 
of  nature,  and  the  producing  of  great  and  marvellous  works 
for  the  benefit  of  men,  under  the  name  of  Solomon's  House, 
or  College  of  the  Six  Day's  Works."  2  This  was  one  kind  ; 
but  there  may  very  well  have  been  another  class  of  patterns 
or  models,  and  the  order  of  time  may  have  been  broken,  in 
respect  of  these,  long  before.  Indeed,  we  are  expressly 
told,  in  the  introduction  to  the  Novum  Organum,  that  the 
Fourth  Part  of  his  great  work  was  to  have  for  its  very 
object  and  intent  to  exhibit  "  some  examples  "  of  his  method 
as  applied  to  "  the  most  dignified  subjects  "  of  inquiry  ;  "  we 
mean,"  says  he,  "actual  types  and  models,  calculated  to 
place,  as  it  were,  before  our  eyes,  the  whole  process  of  the 
mind  and  the  continuous  frame  and  order  of  discovery  in 
particular  subjects,  selected  for  their  variety  and  impor- 
tance." It  is  certain  that  this  Fourth  Part  never  appeared 
as  such  :  it  lay  under  subjection,  perhaps,  to  a  fate  as  inex- 
orable as  that  Sixth  Part  itself,  which,  as  he  tells  us,  could 
not  even  be  undertaken,  in  his  day,  though  he  hoped  to  be 
able  to  make  a  "  no  contemptible  beginning  " ;  but  which 
would  have  for  its  object,  not  only  "  contemplative  enjoy- 
ment," but  "  the  common  affairs  and  fortune  of  mankind, 
and  a  complete  power  of  action,"  and  for  its  end,  to  raise, 
at  last,  upon  those  preliminary  "  foundations  "  which  could 
then  be  instituted  and  established,  and  finally  to  complete, 
the  superstructure  of  "  Philosophy  itself."  8 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  suppose,  that  these  plays  were 
actually  intended  to  constitute  that  contemplated  Fourth 
Part,  or  that  they  were  written  with  that  immediate  view  ; 

1  Ded.  Epist.  to  Bishop  Andrews. 

a  Pref.  to  New  Atlantis.  3  Intro,  to  Nov.  Org. 


BACON  A  POET.  203 

but  that  they  were  written  upon  the  same  philosophical 
theory,  and  with  the  same  general  purpose  in  view,  and 
that  they  might  finally  have  been  considered  as  answering 
very  well  as  a  fitting  substitute  for  one  part  of  it,  or  that 
they  may  now  be  taken  as  illustrating  the  general  scope, 
purpose,  and  intent  of  that  Fourth  Part,  can  scarcely  be 
doubted.  Certainly,  it  must  be  admitted,  that  they  answer 
the  purpose  admirably  well.  It  could  not  have  been  any 
systematic  treatise  of  psychology  that  was  intended  :  such  a 
treatise  would  rather  belong  to  the  Sixth  Part,  the  Phil- 
osopkia  Prima  come  full  circle,  or  Philosophy  itself.  It  is 
altogether  more  probable,  that  these  "illustrative  exam- 
ples "  or  "  types  and  models "  were  to  participate  in  that 
"  sweet  travelling  through  universal  variety,"  of  which  we 
have  a  hint  in  the  Hermit's  Speech  in  the  Masque. 

In  another  Masque,  that  which  was  performed  at  the 
Christmas  Revels  of  Gray's  Inn,  in  1594,  and  in  which  he 
foreshadows  something  of  the  general  scope  of  his  phil- 
osophical schemes,  and  prefigures  our  modern  scientific 
libraries,  museums,  laboratories,  and  zoological  and  botan- 
ical gardens,  he  gives  us  this  hint  of  his  conception  of  a 
model :  — 

"  Next,  a  spacious,  wonderful  garden,  wherein  whatsoever 
plant  the  sun  of  divers  climates,  out  of  the  earth  of  divers 
moulds,  either  wild  or  by  the  culture  of  man  brought  forth, 
may  be  with  that  care  that  appertaineth  to  the  good  pros- 
pering thereof  set  and  cherished.  This  garden  to  be  built 
about  with  rooms  to  stable  in  all  rare  beasts  and  to  cage  in 
all  rare  birds  ;  with  two  lakes  adjoining,  the  one  of  fresh 
water,  the  other  of  salt,  for  like  variety  of  fishes.  And  so 
you  may  have  in  small  compass  a  model  of  universal  nature 
made  private."  *  These  models  were  to  have  a  wide  range 
and  compass  in  their  application  to  particular  subjects, 
which  were  by  no  means  to  be  confined  to  physical  science 
merely,  but  were  to  comprehend  universal  nature  and  all 
i  Masque ;  Letters  and  Life  by  Spedding,  I.  335. 


204  BACON  A  POET. 

philosophy.  "  And  for  myself,"  he  says  again,  "  I  am  not 
raising  a  capitol  or  pyramid  to  the  pride  of  man,  but  laying 
a  foundation  in  the  human  understanding  for  a  holy  temple 
after  the  model  of  the  world  " :  1  yet,  he  continues,  again, 
"  may  God  never  permit  us  to  give  out  the  dream  of  our 
fancy  as  a  model  of  the  world."  2  And,  in  the  play  of 
Richard  II.,  written  a  year  or  two  after  these  Masques,  we 
have  from  himself  (perhaps),  in  the  garden  scene,  an  ex- 
emplification of  his  idea  of  a  model  as  applied  to  the  state 
and  civil  affairs,  in  these  lines  :  — 

u  1  Servt.    Why  should  we,  in  the  compass  of  a  pale, 
Keep  law  and  form,  and  due  proportion, 
Shewing,  as  in  a  model,  our  firm  estate, 
When  our  sea-wall'd  garden,  the  whole  land, 
Is  full  of  weeds  ?  "  —  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

And  again,  thus  :  — 

"  0  England !  model  to  thy  inward  greatness, 
Like  little  body  with  a  mighty  heart, 
What  might'st  thou  do,  that  honour  would  thee  do, 
Were  all  thy  children  kind  and  natural !  " 

Henry  V.,  Act  II.,  Oior. 

In  short  the  foundations  were  to  be  laid,  not  of  physical 
science  only,  but  of  metaphysical  science  also.  We  were 
to  have  "  a  scaling-ladder  of  the  intellect."  which,  pursuing 
"  the  thread  of  the  labyrinth,"  should  disclose  "  the  several 
degrees  of  ascent,"  whereby  only  it  was  possible  for  men  to 
climb  up  to  the  top  of  "  the  magnificent  temple,  palace,  city, 
and  hill "  of  the  great  man  of  the  New  Atlantis,  who  wore  an 
aspect  "as  if  he  pitied  men,"  as  it  had  been  a  "  Scala  Coeli  " 
or  "  ladder  to  all  high  designs,"  8  —  that  hill  of  the  Muses, 
"  above  tempests,  always  clear  and  calm  ;  a  hill  of  the  good- 
liest discovery  that  man  can  have,  being  a  prospect  upon 
all  the  errors  and  wanderings  of  the  present  and  former 

l  Trans,  of  the  Nov.  Org.  by  Spedding,  Works  (Boston),  VIII.  151. 
8  Introd.  to  Nov.  Org. 
8  Troilut  and  Cressida. 


BACON   A  POET.  205 

times  :  —  yea,  in  some  cliff  it  leadeth  the  eye  beyond  the 
horizon  of  time,  and  giveth  no  obscure  divination  of  times 
to  come  :  "  '  — 

"Gfos.    There  is  a  cliff,  whose  high  and  bending  head 
Looks  fearfully  in  the  confined  deep: 
Bring  me  but  to  the  very  brim  of  it, 
And  I  '11  repair  the  misery  thou  dost  bear, 
With  something  rich  about  me:  from  that  place 
I  shall  no  leading  need:  "  — Lear,  Act  IV.  Sc  1. 

that  same  "  high  and  pleasant  hill "  of  the  "  Timon "  that 
was  ■  conceiv'd  to  scope  "  :  — 

'*  This  throne,  this  Fortune,  and  this  hill,  methinks, 
With  one  man  beckon'd  from  the  rest  below, 
Bowing  his  head  against  the  steepy  mount 
To  climb  his  happiness,  would  be  well  express'd 
In  onr  condition :  "  —  Timon,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

and  once  arrived  at  the  "  mountain  tops  "  and  "  uppermost 
elevations  of  nature,"  2  whence  might  be  had  some  true 
glimpse  of  "  the  top  of  judgment "  8  and  "  spring-head  "  * 
of  all  science,  we  might  then  begin  to  comprehend  "  Phi- 
losophy itself : "  — 

"  Gbs.    When  shall  we  come  to  the  top  of  that  same  hill  ?  " 

Lear,  Act  IV.  Sc.  6. 

In  the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  he  found  it  safer  and  better, 
and  perhaps  more  in  accordance  with  the  bent  of  his  genius, 
to  stand  upon  the  hill  of  the  Muses,  where  he  could  avail 
himself  of  his  representative  visible  histories,  speaking 
pictures,  types  and  models,  fables  and  parables,  to  demon- 
strate and  illustrate,  or  retire  and  obscure,  the  secrets  and 
mysteries  of  religion,  policy,  or  philosophy,  after  the  man- 
ner of  all  ancient  poetry,  heathen  or  sacred,  and  in  a  style 
and  form  and  essence  that  should  equal,  if  not  surpass  it 
altogether. 

But  in  the  later  part  of  his  life,  when  he  had  mounted 

l  Essex's  Masque.  2  Scaling-Ladder. 

•  Measure  for  Measure.  *  Adv.  of  Learn. 


206  BACON  A  POET. 

to  the  height  of  power  in  the  state,  and  become  the  keeper 
of  the  King's  conscience  and  his  seals,  when  his  faculties 
had  become  more  "  compounded,"  and  "  stiff  with  age,"  yet 
with  matured  power  and  vigor  of  intellect,  he  would  more 
boldly  enter  "  the  judicial  palace  of  the  mind,"  and  would 
venture,  by  the  help  of  "  new  found  methods  and  com- 
pounds strange  "  *  to  complete,  and  by  the  help  of  princely 
dedications  to  promulgate,  a  systematic  renovation  and 
instauration  of  science  and  philosophy ;  for,  as  he  himself 
says,  this  poesy,  "  being  as  a  plant  that  cometh  of  the  lust 
of  the  earth,  without  a  formal  seed,  it  hath  sprung  up  and 
spread  abroad  more  than  any  other  kind  [of  learning]  :  but 
to  ascribe  unto  it  that  which  is  due,  for  the  expressing  of 
affections,  passions,  corruptions,  and  customs,  we  are  be- 
holden to  poets  more  than  to  the  philosopher's  works  ;  and 
for  wit  and  eloquence,  not  much  less  than  to  orators' 
harangues.  But  it  is  not  good  to  stay  too  long  in  the 
theatre.  Let  us  now  pass  to  the  judicial  place  or  palace  of 
the  mind,  which  we  are  to  approach  and  view  with  more 
reverence  and  attention  "  :  — 2 

"  Pry'thee,  speak : 
Falseness  cannot  come  from  thee;  for  thou  look'st 
Modest  as  Justice,  and  thou  seem'st  a  palace 
For  the  crown'd  Truth  to  dwell  in."  —  Per.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

For,  as  we  remember,  the  Muses  "give  alms  continually 
at  their  gate ;  but  few  they  have  ever  admitted  into  their 
palace." 

And  in  1623,  he  opens  the  third  book  of  the  De 
Augmentis  (taking  the  elegant  and  very  literal  version  of 
Wats)  thus :  — 

"All  History,  excellent  King,  treads  upon  the  earth,  and 
performs  the  office  of  a  guide  rather  than  of  a  light ;  and 
Poesy  is,  as  it  were,  the  dream  of  Knowledge;  a  sweet 
pleasing  thing,  full  of  variations,  and  would  be  thought  to 
be  somewhat  inspired  with  divine  rapture ;  which  dreams 
l  Sonnet.  2  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Book  II. 


GESTA  GRAYORUM.  207 

likewise  present.  But  it  is  time  for  me  to  awake,  and  to 
raise  myself  from  the  earth,  cutting  the  liquid  air  of  Phi- 
losophy and  Sciences."1  And  the  poet  in  the  "Timon" 
expresses  himself  much  in  the  same  way :  — 

"  My  free  drift 
Halts  not  particularly,  but  moves  itself 
In  a  wide  sea  of  wax:  no  levell'd  malice 
Infects  one  comma  in  the  course  I  hold. 
But  flies  an  eagle  flight,  bold,  and  forth  on, 
Leaving  no  tract  behind."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

But  here,  it  was  "fastigia  scilicet  return  tantummodo  trac- 
tans"  2  And  before  finally  taking  leave  of  the  stage,  he 
adds,  in  the  De  Angmentis,  the  following  very  remarkable 
passage  to  what  he  had  before  said  in  the  Advancement 
on  this  subject,  viz. :  — 

"  Dramatic  poesy,  which  takes  the  theatre  for  the  world, 
is  of  excellent  use,  if  it  be  sane.  For  the  discipline  as  well 
as  the  corruption  of  the  theatre  may  be  very  great.  And 
in  mischiefs  of  this  kind  it  abounds  :  the  discipline  is 
plainly  neglected  in  our  times.  Although  in  modern 
states,  play-acting  is  esteemed  but  as  a  ludicrous  thing, 
except  when  it  is  too  satirical  and  biting ;  yet  among  the 
ancients,  it  became  a  means  of  forming  the  souls  of  men  to 
virtue.  Even  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  great  philosophers, 
considered  it  to  be,  as  it  were,  the  plectrum  of  the  mind. 
And  most  certainly,  what  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  nature, 
the  minds  of  men,  when  assembled  together,  are  more  open 
to  affections  and  impressions  than  when  they  are  alone."  8 

§  7.    GESTA    GRAYORUM. 

In  December,  1594,  less  than  a  year  before  this  Masque 
was  written  for  Essex,  Bacon  had  taken  a  principal  part  in 
the  preparations  for  the  Christmas  Revels  at  Gray's  Inn, 

1  De  Aug.,  (Craik's  Bacon,  285). 

2  De  Aug.    Sclent.,  Lib.  III.  c  1. 
8  Ibid.  II.  c.  13. 


208  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

which  were  celebrated  with  especial  splendor  in  that  year. 
A  contemporary  account  of  these  Revels,  drawn  up  by  some 
unknown  author,  and  entitled  "  Gesta  Grayorum "  (first 
printed  in  1688),  has  been  preserved  also  in  Nichols' 
"  Progresses  of  Queen  Elizabeth,"  and  it  is  cited  by  Mr. 
Spedding  as  worthy  of  credit ; *  from  which  it  appears 
that  Francis  Bacon  was  particularly  active  and  zealous 
in  his  efforts  to  entertain  the  Queen  and  her  courtiers 
as  well  as  to  sustain  the  ancient  renown  of  that  wor- 
shipful society  in  the  field  of  wit  and  learned  sports. 
"A  still  more  sumptuous  masque  was  intended,"  thinks 
Nichols, 2  "  if  we  may  judge  from  the  following  letter  from 
the  great  Bacon,"  which  (according  to  Spedding)  was 
found  in  the  Lansdown  collection  of  Lord  Burghley's 
papers,  and  was  most  probably  addressed  to  him,  though 
on  what  precise  occasion  it  is  not  certainly  ascertained.  It 
reads  thus :  — 

"  It  may  please  your  good  Lordship,  —  I  am  sorry  the  joint 
Masque  from  the  Four  Inns  of  Court  faileth ;  wherein  I  conceive 
there  is  no  other  ground  of  that  event  but  impossibility.  Never- 
theless, because  it  faileth  out  that  at  this  time  Gray's  Inn  is  well 
furnished  of  gallant  young  gentlemen,  your  Lordship  may  be 
pleased  to  know,  that  rather  than  this  occasion  shall  pass  without 
some  demonstration  of  affection  from  the  Inns  of  Court,  there 
are  a  dozen  gentlemen  of  Gray's  Inn,  that,  out  of  the  honour 
which  they  bear  to  your  Lordship  and  my  Lord  Chamberlain,  to 
whom  at  their  last  Masque,  they  were  so  much  bounden,  will 
be  ready  to  furnish  a  Masque ;  wishing  it  were  in  their  power 
to  perform  it  according  to  their  mind,  and  so  for  the  present  I 
humbly  take  my  leave,  resting  your  Lordship's  very  humble  and 
much  bounden 

"Fr.  Bacon." 

The  letter  is  without  date  or  address.  Nichols  connects 
it  with  the   masque  of  1594.     Spedding  thinks  it  might 

i  Nichols'  Prog.  Q.  Elk.  (London,  1823),  III.  262;  Letters  and  Life  of 
Bacon,  by  Spedding,  I.  325-342,  (London,  1861). 
a  Prog.  Q.  EUz.  I.  p.  xx;  Spedd.  Letters  and  Life,  II.  370. 


GESTA  GRAYORUM.  209 

possibly  be  referred  to  the  year  1596,  when  Bacon  wrote  to 
the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury  from  Gray's  Inn  "  to  borrow  a 
horse  and  armour  "  for  some  public  show.  Collier  supposes 
it  to  have  been  addressed  to  Lord  Burghley,  not  long  after 
1588.  He  finds  that,  during  the  Christmas  Revels  at 
Gray's  Inn  in  1587,  a  comedy,  in  which  Catiline  and  the 
"  Dominus  de  Purpoole "  were  leading  characters,  was 
exhibited  by  the  Gentlemen  of  Gray's  Inn,  at  their  Hall, 
before  Lord  Burghley  and  other  courtiers,  on  the  16th  of 
January  (1587-8)  and  that,  on  the  28th  of  February  follow- 
ing, a  tragedy  of  the  "  Misfortunes  of  Arthur  "  and  certain 
"  dumb-shews "  in  which  "  Mr.  Francis  Bacon  "  assisted, 
were  presented  before  the  Queen  at  Greenwich  by  the 
Gentlemen  of  this  same  Inn  ; *  and  he  assigns  this  letter  to 
some  subsequent  occasion  ;  but  neither  he,  nor  Mr.  Sped- 
ding,  gives  any  data  on  which  it  can  safely  be  referred  to 
any  other  time  than  that  supposed  by  Nichols.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  besides  this  tragedy  of  Arthur 
and  u  certain  Devices  and  Shewes  "  by  the  Gentlemen  of 
Gray's  Inn,  seven  plays  also  were  performed  before  the 
Queen  by  the  Children  of  Paul's  and  "  her  Majesty's  Ser- 
vants "  of  the  theatre,  during  these  Revels  at  Greenwich ; 
and  the  "  dumb-shews  and  additional  speeches  were  partly 
devised  by  William  Fulbeck,  Francis  Flower,  Christopher 
Yelverton,  Francis  Bacon,  John  Lancaster,  and  others,  who 
with  Master  Penroodock  and  Lancaster  directed  these  pro- 
ceedings at  Court." 2  Here  is  incontestable  proof  that 
Francis  Bacon  was  earnestly  engaged  in  these  dramatic 
entertainments  in  the  same  year  in  which  William  Shake- 
speare is  supposed  to  have  arrived  in  London  to  join  the 
Blackfriars  Company  as  an  humble  "  servitor,"  as  yet  wholly 
unknown  to  fame  as  an  actor  or  as  an  author,  but  (as  some 
would  have  us  believe)  bringing  with  him  pockets  full  of 
plays  and  poems  already  written.    Mr.  Knight  presumes  he 

l  Collier's  Hist.  Dram.  Poetry,  I.  266-8;  (London,  1831). 
a  Knight's  Biog.  of  Shakes.,  326-7;  (London,  1843). 
14 


210  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

played  his  part,  perhaps  furnished  plays,  for  these  very 
Revels ;  and  he  indulges  in  some  highly  poetic  speculations 
upon  this  first  meeting  of  the  philosopher  and  the  poet,  but 
imagines  that  the  high  position  of  the  courtier,  Francis 
Bacon,  would  forbid  him  having  any  acquaintance  with  the 
humble  actor,  though  as  yet  Bacon  had  no  reputation  as  a 
philosopher,  and  Shakespeare  none  as  a  poet. 

We  need  not  wonder  at  this  letter,  whether  it  belong  to 
this  time  or  to  some  other,  nor  that  upon  this  occasion, 
nevertheless,  a  magnificent  Masque  and  other  superb  enter- 
tainments were  easily  forthcoming.  Gray's  Inn  was  turned 
into  the  court  and  kingdom  of  "  Henry  Prince  of  Purpoole," 
with  all  needful  officers  of  State,  not  forgetting  a  Master  of 
the  Revels,  and  the  sports  continued  for  twelve  days  and 
more.  Besides  triumphal  processions  by  land  and  water 
and  various  burlesque  performances  by  day,  there  were 
certain  "  grand  nights "  of  plays,  masques,  dumb-shows, 
banquets,  and  dances.  The  Queen  received  them  at  her 
palace,  and  the  whole  court  attended  on  the  chief  occasions. 
The  account  states  (as  reprinted  by  Nichols)  that  on  the 
second  night  (December  28th)  "  a  Comedy  of  Errors  (like 
unto  Plautus  his  Mencechmus)  was  played  by  the  players." 
Mr.  Spedding  agrees  with  others  before  him  that  this  must 
have  been  the  Shakespeare  play,  as  no  doubt  it  was.  On 
this  occasion,  there  was  a  crowded  attendance  and  such  a 
press  of  ladies,  lords,  and  gentlemen,  whose  dignity  and  sex 
privileged  them  from  interference,  that  there  was  scarcely 
room  on  the  stage  for  the  actors,  and  when  the  Templarian 
ambassador  and  his  train  arrived,  "  at  nine  o'clock,"  there 
was  some  confusion  for  want  of  room,  and  they  "  would  not 
stay  longer  at  that  time,  but  retired,  in  a  sort,  discontented 
and  displeased  ; "  and  so,  as  the  account  states,  some  other 
"  inventions  "  intended  "  especially  for  the  gracing  the  Tem- 
plarians  "  had  to  be  dispensed  with,  but  the  "  dancing  and 
revelling  with  gentlewomen"  proceeded,  and  after  these 
sports,  the  night  closed  with  the  performance  of  this  play  ; 


GESTA  GRAYOEUM.  211 

so  that,  as  the  account  continues,  "  that  night  begun  and 
continued  to  the  end,  in  nothing  but  confusion  and  errors  ; 
whereupon  it  was  ever  afterwards  called  the  Night  of 
Errors."  Mr.  Spedding  appears  to  think  this  play  was 
regarded  as  "  the  crowning  disgrace  of  this  unfortunate 
Grand  Night ; "  but  this  would  seem  to  be  altogether  a 
mistake,  though  it  may  be  true  enough,  if  it  be  understood 
that  the  offence  taken  was,  after  all,  but  a  part  of  the  sport, 
and,  so  far  at  least  as  the  play  was  concerned,  simply  a 
mock-serious  disgrace.  It  is  plain  it  was  not  the  play  that 
offended  the  Templarians.  In  the  fourth  year  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  a  like  round  of  Christmas  Revels  was  cel- 
ebrated at  the  Inner  Temple  with  equal  splendor  and 
magnificence,  in  which  Lord  Robert  Dudley  was  elected 
"  Mighty  Palaphilos  Prince  of  Sophie,  High  Constable, 
Marshall  of  the  Knight  Templars,  and  Patron  of  the  Hon- 
ourable Order  of  Pegasus  " ;  and,  on  one  night,  there  was  a 
"  Lord  of  Misrule "  (a  standing  character  on  these  occa- 
sions), and  the  banquet  ended  in  mirth,  minstrelsy,  and 
wine,  and,  on  the  following  night,  there  was  a  grand  mock- 
trial  at  which  the  constable,  marshal,  and  common-serjeant 
were  arraigned  for  the  "  disorder  "  and  humorously  sent  to 
the  Tower.1  And  these  later  Revels  at  Gray's  Inn  seem 
to  have  been  conducted  much  after  the  same  model :  in 
fact,  this  "  Prince  of  Purpoole  "  appears  to  have  been  the 
standing  prince  of  sports  and  "  Lord  of  Misrule  "  at  this 
Inn  from  1587  until  1618,  when  the  Students  of  Gray's 
Inn  honored  the  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  with  an  exhibition 
before  him  of  the  "  Tilt  of  Henry  Prince  of  Purpoole  "  and 
the  "  Masque  of  Mountebanks,"  with  an  installation  of  the 
"  Honourable  Order  of  the  Crescent "  and  a  Song  for  his 
special  "Entertainment"2  At  any  rate,  this  "Night  of 
Errors  "  was  followed,  on  the  very  next  night,  with  a  mock- 
trial  of  the  "  sorcerer  or  conjurer  that  was  supposed  to  be 

i  Shakes.  England,  by  G.  W.  Thornbuiy,  II.  363-9;  (London,  1856). 
a  Nichols'  Prog.  James  /.,  III.  466. 


212  GESTA  GRAYOEUM. 

the  cause  of  that  confused  inconvenience " ;  and  the  in- 
dictment concluded  thus  :  "  And  lastly,  that  he  had  foisted 
a  company  of  base  and  common  fellows  to  make  up  our 
disorders  with  a  play  of  Errors  and  Confusions,  and  that 
night  had  gained  to  us  discredit  and  itself  a  nickname  of 
Errors :  All  which  were  against  the  crown  and  dignity  of 
our  Sovereign  Lord  the  Prince  of  Purpoole."  But  the 
verdict  was,  that  they  '4  were  nothing  else  but  vain  illusions, 
fancies,  and  enchantments,  which  might  be  compassed  by 
means  of  a  poor  harmless  wretch  that  had  never  heard  of 
such  great  matters  in  all  his  life  ; "  and  so,  the  "  sorcerer 
or  conjurer"  was  pardoned,  and  the  Attorney,  Solicitor,  and 
Master  of  Requests  sent  to  the  Tower  for  making  so  much 
ado  about  law.  Of  course,  this  was  all  in  jest,  if  not  a  set 
part  of  the  programme  :  — 

"  Sure,  these  are  but  imaginary  •wiles, 
And  Lapland  sorcerers  inhabit  here." 

Com.  of  Errors,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

And  the  hint  of  this  conjurer  most  probably  came  from  the 

play  itself :  — 

"  Along  with  them 
They  brought  one  Pinch,  a  hungry  lean-fac'd  villain, 
A  mere  anatomy,  a  mountebank, 
A  thread-bare  juggler,  and  a  fortune  teller, 
A  needy,  hollow-ey'd,  sharp-looking  wretch, 
A  living  dead  man.     This  pernicious  slave, 
Forsooth,  took  on  him  as  a  conjurer, 
And,  gazing  in  mine  eyes,  feeling  my  pulse, 
And  with  no  face,  as  'twere,  out-facing  me, 
Cries  out  I  was  possess'd."  — Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Some  u  graver  conceits  "  were  produced  on  a  subsequent 
night,  including  a  Masque  and  a  formal  induction  of  the 
Ambassador  and  twenty-four  Templarians  into  the  Honour- 
able Order  of  the  Helmet,  together  with  "  divers  plots  and 
devices,"  beginning  with  a  dumb-show,  which  represented 
the  reconciliation  of  the  offended  Templarians ;  for  their 
displeasure  was  not  so  deep  but  that  a  grand  procession  of 


GESTA  GRAYORUM.  213 

all  the  heroic  examples  of  friendship,  Theseus  and  Per- 
ithous,  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  Pylades  and  Orestes,  Scipio 
and  Laelius,  and  lastly  Graius  and  Templarius,  "arm  in 
arm,"  before  the  altar  of  the  Arch-flamen  of  the  Goddess 
of  Amity,  surrounded  with  singing  nymphs  and  fairies,  was 
sufficient  to  restore  and  cement  the  ancient  "  league  of 
brotherhood  and  love  between  the  two  Inns."  The  reading 
of  the  Articles  for  the  regulation  of  the  Heroicat  Order  of 
the  Helmet  was  followed  with  a  variety  of  music  and  a 
banquet  served  by  the  Knights  of  the  Order.  This  being 
over,  a  table  was  set  on  the  stage  before  the  royal  throne, 
around  which  sat  six  privy  counsellors,  and  the  Masque 
proceeded.  The  Prince  asked  their  advice,  and  each  an- 
swered in  succession.  The  first  advised  war ;  the  second, 
the  study  of  philosophy  ;  the  third,  the  eternal  fame  to  be 
acquired  by  building ;  the  fourth,  the  absoluteness  of 
state  and  treasure ;  the  fifth  praised  virtue  and  a  gracious 
government ;  and  the  sixth,  pastimes  and  sports.  The 
Prince  preferred  the  last ;  and  the  evening  ended  with 
dancing. 

On  this  occasion,  the  Lord  Keeper,  Lord  Treasurer,  and 
numerous  courtiers  and  great  persons,  and  among  them  the 
Earls  of  Essex  and  Southampton,  were  present.  The 
speeches  of  the  Masque  are  given  by  Mr.  Spedding  as 
unquestionably  the  work  of  Bacon  ;  and  the  presence  of 
these  great  officers  of  state  may  explain  why  the  matter 
of  them  is  made  to  point  more  nearly  to  those  great  reforms 
and  improvements  which  he  was  so  diligently  urging  upon 
the  attention  of  his  time  and  country ;  for  he  sought,  on  all 
occasions,  to  mingle  instruction  with  amusement. 

Mr.  Spedding  also  gives  the  Articles  that  were  drawn  up 
for  the  government  of  the  new  Order  of  the  Helmet,  but 
he  seems  to  think  that  these  were  not  written  by  Bacon  ; 
and  he  tells  the  story  of  these  Revels  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  exclude  the  idea  that  Bacon  was  the  actual  author  of 
anything  but  the  Masque  ;  though  he  admits,  as  a  probable 


214  GESTA  GRATORUM. 

conjecture,  that  he  had  a  hand  in  the  general  design,  as  he 
had  a  taste  in  such  things,  and  did  sometimes  take  part  in 
them.  In  fact,  his  hand  is  also  distinctly  visible,  both  in 
the  articles  and  in  the  play.  The  wit  of  both  is  of  the 
same  order,  and  decidedly  in  the  Baconian  and  Shake- 
spearean vein.  Being  written  at  nearly  the  same  time  and 
as  distinct  parts  of  one  and  the  same  series  of  performances, 
we  should  not  expect  any  identity  beyond  the  general  style 
and  manner  and  those  minute  out-croppings  and  remote 
echoes  of  the  same  ideas,  images,  and  words,  of  which  the 
author  himself  would  be  almost,  if  not  quite  unconscious  ; 
but  which,  nevertheless,  are  enough  to  enable  an  attentive 
ear  to  mark  his  individuality ;  as  in  the  following  instances, 
compared  with  the  Articles :  — 

ORDER   OF   THE    HELMET.1 

"  Imprimis.  Every  Knight  of  this  Honourable  Order,  whether  he  be  a 
natural  subject  or  a  stranger  born,  shall  promise  never  to  bear  arms  against 
his  Highness*  sacred  person,  nor  his  state :  but  to  assist  him  in  all  his  lawful 
wars,  and  maintain  all  his  just  pretences  and  titles;  especially  his  High- 
ness' title  to  the  land  of  the  Amazons  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.*' 

'•  AnL  S.    Where  America,  the  Indies? 

Dro.  S.  O!  sir,  upon  her  nose,  all  o'er  embellished  with  rubies,  car- 
buncles, saphires,  declining  their  rich  aspect  to  the  hot  breath  of  Spain,  who 
sent  whole  armadoes  of  carracks  to  be  ballast  at  her  nose."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  Item.  Xo  Knight  of  this  Order,  in  point  of  order,  shall  resort  to  any 
grammar-rules  out  of  the  books  Be  Buello,  or  such  like;  but  shall  out  of  his 
own  brave  mind  and  natural  courage  deliver  himself  from  scorns,  as  to  his 
own  discretion  shall  seem  convenient." 

"  Ttmek.  O  sir,  we  quarrel  in  print  by  the  book ;  as  you  have  books  for 
good  manners.  I  will  name  yon  the  degrees.  The  first,  the  Retort  Cour- 
teous; the  second,  the  Quip  Modest;  the  third,  the  Reply  Churlish;  the 
fourth,  the  Reproof  Valiant ;  the  fifth,  the  Countercheck  Quarrelsome ;  the 
sixth,  the  Lie  with  Circumstance ;  the  seventh,  the  Lie  Direct.  All  these 
you  may  avoid  but  the  Lie  Direct;  and  you  may  avoid  that,  too,  with  an 
4  If.'  "  —  A*  You  Like  It,  ActV.Sci.*  ' 

i  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  I.  329. 

2  Both  passages  doubtless  allude  to  the  same  book  "  Be  Duello,"  or  "  Of 
Honour  and  Honourable  Quarrels,"  by  Vincentio  Saviolo,  printed  in  1594. 
White's  Shakes.  (Notes),  IV.  384. 


GESTA  GRAYOECM.  215 

"  Laun.  Well,  the  most  courageous  fiend  bids  me  pack:  '  Via ! '  says  the 
fiend;  '  away ! '  says  the  fiend;  '  for  the  Heavens,  rouse  up  a  brave  mind,' 
says  the  fiend, '  and  run.'  "  —  Mer.  of  Fen.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  be  inquisitive  towards  any  lady 
or  gentleman,  whether  her  beauty  be  English  or  Italian,  or  whether  with 
care-taking  she  have  added  half  a  foot  to  her  stature ;  but  shall  take  all  to 
the  best.  Neither  shall  any  Knight  of  the  aforesaid  order  presume  to  affirm 
that  faces  were  better  twenty  years  ago  than  they  are  at  this  present  time, 
except  such  knight  have  passed  three  climacteral  years." 

"  jEge.    My  youngest  boy,  and  yet  my  eldest  care, 
At  eighteen  years  became  inquisitive 
After  his  brother."  —  Com.  of  Err.,  Act  I.  8c.  1. 
"  To  conclude:  no  man  can  by  care-taking  (as  the  Scripture  saith)  add  a 
cubit  to  his  stature,  in  this  little  model  of  a  man's  body."  —  Essay  xxix. 

This  word  "  twenty "  is  used  in  this  manner  as  an  ex- 
pletive, times  almost  without  number,  in  both  Bacon  aud 
Shakespeare  :  it  is  one  of  his  words. 

"  Item.  Every  Knight  of  this  Order  is  bound  to  perform  all  requisite  and 
manly  service,  be  it  night-service  or  otherwise,  as  the  case  requireth,  to  all 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  beautiful  by  nature  or  art,  ever  offering  his  aid  with- 
out any  demand  thereof,  and  if  in  case  he  fail  so  to  do,  he  shall  be  deemed 
a  match  of  disparagement  to  any  of  his  Highness1  widows  or  wards-female ; 
and  his  Excellency  shall  in  justice  forbear  to  make  any  tender  of  him  to  any 
such  ward  or  widow." 

"  But  to  our  honour's  great  disparagement"  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  Eva.  ...  If  Sir  John  Falstaff  have  committed  disparagements  unto 
you."  —  Mer.  Wives,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  procure  any  letters  from  his  High- 
ness to  any  widow  or  maid,  for  his  enablement  or  commendation  to  be 
advanced  in  marriage ;  but  all  prerogative,  wooing  set  apart,  shall  forever 
cease  as  to  any  of  those  Knights,  and  shall  be  left  to  the  common  laws  of 
this  land,  declared  by  the  statute  Quia  electiones  libera  esse  debent" 

"  Dro.  S.     I  am  an  ass ;  I  am  a  woman's  man,  and  besides  myself. 

Ant.  S.     What  woman's  man  ?  and  how  besides  thyself? 

Dro.  S.  Marry,  sir,  besides  myself,  I  am  due  to  a  woman ;  one  that 
claims  me,  one  that  haunts  me,  one  that  will  have  me. 

Ant.  S.    What  claim  lays  she  to  thee? 

Dro.  S.  Marry,  sir,  such  claim  as  you  would  lay  to  your  horse;  and  she 
would  have  me  as  a  beast :  not  that,  I  being  a  beast,  she  would  have  me ; 
but  that  she,  being  a  very  beastly  creature,  lays  claim  to  me. 

Ant.  S.    What  is  she? 

Dro.  S.  A  very  reverend  body ;  ay,  snch  a  one  as  a  man  may  not  speak 
of,  without  he  say,  sir-reverence.  I  have  but  lean  luck  in  the  match,  and 
yet  she  is  a  wondrous  fat  marriage."  — Act  III.  Sc.  2. 


216  GESTA  GRAYOKUM. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Honourable  Order,  in  case  he  shall  grow  into 
decay,  shall  procure  from  his  Highness  [for  his]  relief  and  sustentation  any 
monopolies  or  privileges,  except  only  these  kinds  following  :  that  is  to  say, 
upon  every  tobacco-pipe,  not  being  one  foot  wide.  Upon  every  lock  that  is 
worn,  not  being  seven  foot  long.  Upon  every  health  that  is  drunk,  not 
being  of  a  glass  five  foot  deep.  And  upon  every  maid  in  his  Highness' 
province  of  Islington,  continuing  a  virgin  after  the  age  of  fourteen  years, 
contrary  to  the  use  and  custom  in  that  place  always  had  and  observed." 

"  Dro.  S.  ...  —  he,  sir,  that  takes  pity  on  decayed  men,  and  gives 
them  suits  of  durance."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  Against  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  town."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  —  the  great  reverence  and  formalities  given  to  your  laws  and  customs, 
in  derogation  of  your  absolute  prerogatives."  —  Masque. 

"  And  then  dreams  he  of  cutting  foreign  throats, 
Of  breaches,  ambuscadoes,  Spanish  blades, 
Of  healths  five  fadom  deep."  — Rom.  and  Jul.,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  have  any  more  than  one  mistress, 
for  whose  sake  he  shall  be  allowed  to  wear  three  colours.  But  if  he  will 
have  two  mistresses,  then  must  he  wear  six  colours ;  and  so  forward,  after 
the  rate  of  three  colours  to  a  mistress." 

It  is  probable  that  in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  these  "  col- 
ours "  had  some  kinship  with  the  "  Colours  of  Good  and 
Evil." 

"  Nath.  Sir,  you  have  done  this  in  the  fear  of  God,  very  religiously ;  and 
as  a  certain  Father  saith  — 

Hoi.  Sir,  tell  not  me  of  the  Father;  I  do  fear  colourable  colours."  — 
Love's  L.  L.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  put  out  any  money  upon  strange 
returns  or  performances  to  be  made  by  his  own  person ;  as  to  hop  up  the 
stairs  to  the  top  of  St.  Paul's  without  intermission;  or  any  such  like  agilities 
or  endurances ;  except  it  may  appear  that  the  same  performances  or  prac- 
tices do  enable  him  to  some  service  or  employment ;  as  if  he  do  undertake 
to  go  a  journey  backward,  the  same  shall  be  thought  to  enable  him  to  be 
an  ambassador  into  Turkey." 

"  King.     This  is  the  English,  not  the  Turkish  court ; 
Not  Amurath  an  Amurath  succeeds, 
But  Harry,  Harry."— 2  Hen.  IV.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  Eno.  [Speaking  of  Cleopatra].    I  saw  her  once 
Hop  forty  paces  through  the  public  street."  —  Ant.  and  Cleo.  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 
"  K.  Hen.     .  .  .  Shall  not  thou  and  I,  between  St.  Denis  and  St.  George, 
compound  a  boy,  half  French,  half  English,  that  shall  go  to  Constantinople, 
and  take  the  Turk  by  the  beard?  "  —  Hen.  V.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 


GESTA  GRAYORDM.  217 

"  Such  a  man 
Might  be  a  copy  to  these  younger  times ; 
Which,  follow'd  well,  would  demonstrate  them  now 
But  goers  backward."  — AUys  Weil,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

"  —  or  I  would  send  them  to  the  Turk,  to  make  eunuchs  of." 

lb.  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  that  hath  had  any  license  to  travel  into 
foreign  countries,  be  it  by  map,  card,  sea,  or  land,  and  hath  returned  from 
thence,  shall  presume  upon  the  warrant  of  a  traveller  to  report  any  extra- 
ordinary varieties ;  as  that  he  hath  ridden  through  Venice  on  horseback 
post,  or  that  in  December  he  sailed  up  the  Cape  of  Norway,  or  that  he  hath 
travelled  over  the  most  part  of  the  countries  of  Geneva,  or  such  like 
hyperboles,  contrary  to  the  statute  Prqpterea  quod  diversos  terrarum  ambitus 
errant  et  vayantur,  etc." 

*  Extraordinary  varieties  "  is  particularly  Baconian. 
"  Could  all  my  travels  warrant  me  they  live."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  sweet  travelling  through  the  universal  variety."  — Masque. 

"  Ant.  S.    What 's  her  name  ? 

Dro.  S.    Nell,  sir;  but  her  name  and  three  quarters,  that  is,  an  ell  and 
three  quarters,  will  not  measure  her  from  hip  to  hip. 
Ant.  S.    Then  she  bears  some  breadth  ? 

Dro.  S.  No  longer  from  head  to  foot,  than  from  hip  to  hip :  she  is 
spherical,  like  a  globe;  I  could  find  out  countries  in  her."  — Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  then,  the  countries  are  named  much  in  the  same 
style  of  hyperbole  as  in  this  article,  and  with  even  greater 
freedom  of  wit,  as  any  one  may  see  by  reference  to  the 
play  ;  and  in  the  "  Love's  Labor  's  Lost,"  written  a  few  years 
prior  to  this  date,  we  find  his  mind  running  on  the  same 
key,  as  thus  :  — 

"  Taffata  phrases,  silken  terms  precise, 
Three  pil'd  hyperboles,  spruce  affection, 
Figures  pedantical."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

And  it  is  Bacon  who  says,  — 

"  That  the  speaking  in  a  perpetual  hyperbole  is  comely  in  nothing  but 
love."  —  Essay  x. 

"  Boni.  Will  your  grace  command  me  any  service  to  the  world's  end  ? 
I  will  go  on  the  slightest  errand  now  to  the  Antipodes,  that  you  can  devise 
to  set  me  on ;  I  will  fetch  you  a  tooth-picker  now  from  the  farthest  inch  of 
Asia;  bring  yon  the  length  of  Prester  John's  foot;  fetch  you  a  hair  off  the 
great  Cham's  beard ;  do  you  any  embassage  to  the  Pigmies,  rather  than 
hold  three  words'  conference  with  this  harpy."  —  Much  Ado,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 


218  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

"  Item.  Every  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  do  his  endeavour  to  be  in  the 
books  of  the  worshipful  citizens  of  the  principal  city  next  adjoining  to  the 
territories  of  Purpoole ;  and  none  shall  unlearnedly,  or  without  booking,  pay 
ready  money  for  any  wares  or  other  things  pertaining  to  the  gallantness  of 
his  Honour's  Court ;  to  the  ill  example  of  others,  and  utter  subversion  of 
credit  betwixt  man  and  man." 

"  Mer.    How  is  the  man  esteem'd  here  in  the  city? 
Ang.     Of  very  reverend  reputation,  sir, 

Of  credit  infinite,  highly  belov'd, 

Second  to  none  that  lives  here  in  the  city."  — Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

"  Alas,  poor  women !  make  us  but  believe, 
Being  compact  of  credit,  that  you  love  us."  — Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  Item.  Every  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  apply  himself  to  some  or  other 
virtuous  qualitv  or  ability  of  learning,  honour,  or  arms :  and  shall  not  think 
it  sufficient  to  come  into  his  Honour's  presence-chamber  in  good  apparel 
only,  or  to  be  able  to  keep  company  at  play  or  gaming.  For  such  it  is 
already  determined  that  they  be  put  and  taken  for  implements  of  household, 
and  are  placed  in  his  Honour's  inventory." 

"  Oliv.  O,  sir,  I  will  not  be  so  hard-hearted;  I  will  give  out  divers 
schedules  of  my  beauty.  It  shall  be  inventoried ;  and  every  particle,  and 
utensil,  labell'd  to  my  will:  as,  item,  too  lips,  indifferent  red;  item,  two 
gray  eyes  with  lids  to  them;  item,  one  neck,  one  chin,  and  so  forth.'  — 
Twelfth  Night,  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

"  Item.  Every  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  endeavour  to  add  conference 
and  experience  to  reading;  and  therefore  shall  not  only  read  and  peruse 
Guizo,  the  French  Academy,  Galiatto  the  Courtier,  Plutarch,  the  Arcadia, 
and  the  Neoterical  writers,  from  time  to  time ;  but  also  frequent  the  theatre 
and  such  like  places  of  experience ;  and  resort  to  the  better  sort  of  ordinaries 
for  conference,  whereby  they  may  not  only  become  accomplished  with  civil 
conversation  and  able  to  govern  a  table  with  discourse ;  but  also  sufficient, 
if  need  be,  to  make  epigrams,  emblems,  and  other  devices  appertaining  to 
his  Honour's  learned  revels." 

"  Once  this,  —  Your  long  experience  of  her  wisdom, 

Her  sober  virtue,  years,  and  modesty, 

Plead  on  her  part  some  cause  to  you  unknown."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"  Adr.    It  was  the  copy  of  our  conference."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  What !  nothing  but  tasks,  nothing  but  working  days  ?  No  feasting,  no 
music,  no  dancing,  no  triumphs,  no  comedies,  no  love,  no  ladies  ?  Let  other 
men's  lives  be  as  pilgrimages,  because  they  are  tied  to  divers  necessities  and 
duties ;  but  princes'  lives  are  as  progresses,  dedicated  only  to  variety  and 
solace."  — Masque. 

"  In  the  afternoon 
We  will  with  some  strange  pastime  solace  them, 
Such  as  the  shortness  of  the  time  can  shape ; 


GESTA  GRAYORCM.  219 

For  revels,  dances,  masques,  and  merry  hours, 
Fore-run  fail  Love,  strewing  her  way  with  flowers."' 

Love's  Labor  '$  Lost,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  give  out  what  gracious  words  the 
Prince  hath  given  him,  nor  leave  word  at  his  chamber,  in  case  any  come  to 
speak  with  him,  that  he  is  above  with  his  Excellency,  nor  cause  his  man 
when  he  shall  be  in  any  public  assembly  to  call  him  suddenly  to  go  to  the 
Prince,  nor  cause  any  packet  of  letters  to  be  brought  at  dinner  or  supper- 
time,  nor  say  that  he  had  the  refusal  of  some  great  office,  nor  satisfy  suitors 
to  say  his  Honour  is  not  in  any  good  disposition,  nor  make  any  narrow 
observation  of  his  Excellency's  nature  and  fashions,  as  if  he  were  inward 
privately  with  his  Honour;  contrary  to  the  late  inhibition  of  selling  of 
smoke." 

"  Adr.    What  observation  mad'st  thou  in  this  case, 
Of  his  heart's  meteors  tilting  in  his  face?  "  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

"  Lucio.  Sir,  I  was  an  inward  of  his.  A  shy  fellow  was  the  Duke."  — 
Meat,  for  Meas.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  Love  is  a  smoke  made  with  the  fume  of  sighs."  — Bom.  and  J.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  They  shoot  but  calm  words,  folded  up  in  smoke, 
To  make  a  faithless  error  in  your  ears."  —  K.  John,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"  Wherefore,  first  of  all,  most  virtuous  Prince,  assure  yourself  of  an  inward 
peace."  —  Masque 

"  Bene.    And  though  you  know  my  inwardness  and  love 
Is  very  much  unto  the  Prince  and  Claudio."  —  Much  Ado,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  Opinion  is  a  master- wheel  in  these  cases :  that  courtier  who  obtained  a 
boon  of  the  emperor,  that  he  might  every  morning  at  his  coming  into  the 
presence  merely  whisper  him  in  the  ear,  and  say  nothing,  asked  no  un- 
profitable suit  for  himself."  —  Advice  to  ViUiers. 

"  Fal.  ...  If  I  had  a  suit  to  Master  Shallow,  I  would  humour  his  men 
with  the  imputation  of  being  near  their  master."  —  2  Hen.  I V.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  A  servant  or  a  favourite,  if  he  be  inward  and  no  apparent  cause  of  esteem, 
is  commonly  thought  but  a  by-way  to  close  corruption."  —  Essay  of  Great 
Place. 

"  Who  is  most  inward  with  the  Duke  ?  "  —  Bich.  III.,  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

"  Arm.    Sweet  smoke  of  rhetoric ! "  —  Love's  L.  L.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"  Arm.    Sir,  the  King  is  a  noble  gentleman,  and  my  familiar,  I  do  assure 
you,  very  good  friend.    For  what  is  inward  between  us,  let  it  pass.  .  .  . 
By  the  world,  I  recount  no  fable :  some  certain  special  honours  it  pleaseth 
his  greatness  to  impart  to  Armado,  a  soldier,  a  man  of  travel,  that  hath 
seen  the  world;  but  let  that  pass."  —  I^ove's  L.  L.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  be  armed  for  the  safeguard  of  his 
countenance  with  a  poke  in  his  mouth  in  the  nature  of  a  tooth-picker,  or 


220  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

with  any  weapon  in  his  hand,  he  it  stick,  plume,  wand,  or  any  such  like. 
Neither  shall  he  draw  out  of  his  pocket  any  book,  or  paper,  to  read,  for  the 
same  intent;  neither  shall  he  retain  any  extraordinary  shrug,  nod,  or  any 
familiar  motion  or  gesture,  to  the  same  end ;  for  his  Highness  of  his  gracious 
clemency  is  disposed  to  lend  his  countenance  to  all  such  Knights  as  are  out 
of  countenance." 

"  Ant.  E.    And  with  no  face,  as  'twere,  out-facing  me."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  Hoi.    I  will  not  be  put  out  of  countenance. 
Bir.    Because  thou  hast  no  face. 

Ay,  and  worn  in  the.  cap  of  a  tooth-drawer. 

And  now,  forward ;  for  we  have  put  thee  in  countenance. 

Hoi.    You  have  put  me  out  of  countenance. 

Bir.    False :  we  have  given  thee  faces. 

Hoi.    But  you  have  out-fac'd  them  all."  —  Love's  L.  L.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  Bast.    .  .  .  Now  your  traveller,  — 
He  and  his  tooth-pick  at  my  worship's  mess; 
And  when  my  knightly  stomach  is  suffic'd, 
Why  then  I  suck  my  teeth,  and  catechize 
My  picked  man  of  countries.  .  .  . 
And  talking  of  the  Alps  and  Apennines, 
The  Pyrenean  and  the  river  Po, 
It  draws  toward  supper,  in  conclusion  so. 
But  this  is  worshipful  society, 
And  fits  the  mounting  spirit,  like  myself; 
For  he  is  but  a  bastard  to  the  time, 
That  doth  not  smack  of  observation ; 
And  so  am  I,  whether  I  smack,  or  no ; 
And  not  alone  in  habit  and  device, 
Exterior  form,  outward  accoutrement, 
But  from  the  inward  motion  to  deliver 
Sweet,  sweet,  sweet  poison  for  the  age's  tooth." 

K.  John,  Act  1.  Sc.  1. 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  that  weareth  fustian  cloth,  or  such 
statute  apparel,  for  necessity,  shall  pretend  to  wear  the  same  for  the  new 
fashion's  sake." 

"  Luc.    Your  fellow  Tranio  here,  to  save  my  life, 
Puts  my  apparel  and  my  count'nance  on, 
And  I  for  my  escape  have  put  on  his. 
For  in  a  quarrel,  since  I  came  ashore, 
I  kill'd  a  man,  and  fear  I  was  descried." 

Tarn,  of  the  Shrew,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


"  Tran.     'Tis  some  odd  humour  pricks  him  to  this  fashion; 
Yet  oftentimes  he  goes  but  mean  apparell'd."  —  Ibid.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 


GESTA  GRAYORUM.  221 

"  Item.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  in  walking  the  streets  or  other  places 
of  resort,  shall  bear  his  hands  in  his  pockets  of  his  great  rolled  hose  with 
the  Spanish  wheel,  if  it  be  not  either  to  defend  his  hands  from  the  cold,  or 
else  to  guard  forty  shillings  sterling,  being  in  the  same  pockets." 

"  Jttm.  No  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  lay  to  pawn  his  Collar  of  Knight- 
hood for  an  hundred  pounds;  and  if  he  do,  he  shall  be  ipso  facto  discharged; 
and  it  shall  be  lawful  for  any  man  whatsoever  that  will  retain  the  same 
Collar  for  the  term  aforesaid,  forthwith  to  take  upon  him  the  same  Knight- 
hood, by  reason  of  a  secret  virtue  in  the  Collar;  for  in  this  order  it  is  holden 
for  a  certain  rule  that  the  Knighthood  followeth  the  Collar,  and  not  the 
Collar  the  Knighthood." 

"  OrL    He  needs  not;  it  is  no  hidden  virtue  in  him. 
Con.    By  my  faith,  sir.  but  it  is ;  never  anybody  saw  it  but  his  lackey ; 
'tis  a  hooded  valour,  and  when  it  appears  it  will  bate." 

Henry  V.,  Act  III.  Sc.  7. 

"  Item.  That  no  Knight  of  this  Order  shall  take  upon  him  the  person  of 
a  malcontent,  in  going  with  a  more  private  retinue  than  appertaineth  to  his 
degree,  and  using  but  certain  special  obscure  company,  and  commending 
none  but  men  disgraced  and  out  of  office ;  and  smiling  at  good  news,  as  if 
he  knew  something  that  were  not  true ;  and  making  odd  notes  of  his  High- 
ness' reign,  and  former  governments ;  or  saying  that  his  Highness'  sports 
were  well  sorted  with  a  play  of  Errors  ;  and  such  like  pretty  speeches  of 
jest,  to  the  end  that  he  may  more  safely  utter  his  malice  against  his  Excel- 
lency's happiness;  upon  pain  to  be  present  at  all  his  Excellency's  most 
glorious  triumphs." 

Considering  that  these  Revels  were  got  up  in  imitation 
of  the  former  occasion,  when  there  was  a  "  Lord  of  Mis- 
rule "  and  a  mock-trial  for  the  "  disorders,"  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  these  Articles  were  prepared  beforehand,  as 
the  play  certainly  must  have  been,  and  that  the  humor  of 
"  a  play  of  Errors  "  sorting  with  "  his  Highness'  sports  "  was 
a  part  of  the  original  programme,  and  not  an  afterthought. 

—  "  the  difficulties  and  errors  in  the  conclusion  of  nature."  —  Masque. 
"Ant.  S.    And  thereupon  these  errors  all  arose."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"Lew.    And,  sure,  unless  you  send  some  present  help, 
Between  them  they  will  kill  the  conjurer."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  or  in  pretty  scorns  or  disdains  to  those  that  seemed  to  doubt  of  him." 

Hist,  of  Hen.  VII. 

—  "  an  index  and  obscure  prologue."  —  OtheUo,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

— "certain  special  honours  it  pleaseth  his  greatness  to  impart  to  Anna- 
do."  —  Love's  L.  L.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 


222  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

"Lastly.  All  the  Knights  of  this  Honourable  Order  and  the  renowned  Sov- 
ereign of  the  same  shall  yield  all  homage,  loyalty,  unaffected  admiration,  and 
all  humble  service,  of  what  name  or  condition  soever,  to  the  incomparable 
Empress  of  the  fortunate  Island." 

The  Masque  itself  alludes  both  to  the  Articles  and  the 
play  in  such  manner  as  rather  to  indicate  that  the  three 
performances  were  all  of  one  piece,  and  came  from  one  and 
the  same  source ;  especially  if  it  be  considered,  that  they 
must  all  have  been  written  before  the  Revels  began ;  and 
this  is  further  evident  from  the  fact  that  among  the  titles 
of  the  Prince,  on  the  first  day,  was  that  of  "  Knight  and 
Sovereign  of  the  Honourable  Order  of  the  Helmet,"  in  like 
manner  as  before,  when  the  Prince  was  named  "  Patron  of 
the  Honourable  Order  of  Pegasus,"  and  that  in  the  em- 
blazonry of  arms  the  Prince  of  Purpoole  took  "for  his 
Highness'  crest  the  glorious  planet  Sol,  coursing  through 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiack  or  celestial  globe,  whereupon 
the  nod  fills  Arctick  and  Antartick,  with  this  motto  :  Dum 
totum  peregravent  orbem  "  ;  of  which  there  would  seem  to  be 
a  kind  of  reminiscence  in  these  lines  from  the  "  Troilus  and 
Cressida : "  — 

"  Degree  being  vizarded, 
The  unworthiest  shews  as  fairly  in  the  mask. 
The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre, 
Observe  degree,  priority,  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form, 
Office,  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order: 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet  Sol 
In  noble  eminence  enthron'd  and  spher'd 
Amidst  the  other."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

And  the  resemblances  between  the  masque  and  the  play, 
if  less  numerous  than  those  between  the  play  and  the 
articles,  are  not  less  striking  when  they  occur,  as  for  in- 
stance these : — 

"  No  conquest  of  Julius  Caesar  made  him  so  renowned  as  the  Calendar." 

Masque. 

"And  you  the  calendars  of  their  nativity."  —  Play,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 


GESTA  GRAYORUM.  223 

"  Have  care  that  your  intelligence,  which  is  the  light  of  your  state,  do  not 
go  out,  or  burn  dim  or  obscure."  —  Masque. 

As  a  part  of  the  order  of  the  sports,  on  the  day  of  the 
Prince's  coronation,  it  is  stated  that  — 

"  Lucy  Negro,  Abbess  of  Clerkenwell,  holdeth  the  nunnery  of  Clerken- 
well  with  the  lands  and  privileges  thereunto  belonging  of  the  Prince  of 
Purpoole,  by  night  service  in  caudd,  and  to  find  a  choir  of  nuns,  with 
burning  lamps,  to  chaunt  Placebo  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  Prince's  Privy 
Chamber  on  the  day  of  his  Excellency's  coronation."  —  Nichols',  III.  270 : 
Gesta. 

"Dro.  S.  It  is  written,  they  appear  to  men  like  angels  of  light:  light  is 
an  effect  of  fire,  and  fire  will  burn;  ergo,  light  wenches  will  burn."  —  Play, 
Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  That  your  Excellency  be  not  as  a  lamp  that  shineth  to  others  and  yet 
seeth  not  itself,  but  as  the  Eye  of  the  World,  that  both  carrieth  and  useth 
light."  —  Masque. 

"Dro.  S.  Marry,  sir,  she's  the  kitchen  wench,  and  all  grease;  and  I 
know  not  what  use  to  put  her  to,  but  to  make  a  lamp  of  her  and  run  from 
her  by  her  own  light.  I  warrant,  her  rags  and  the  tallow  in  them,  will  burn 
a  Poland  winter:  if  she  lives  till  doomsday,  she  '11  burn  a  week  longer  than 
the  whole  world."  —  Play,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  the  same  ideas  and  imagery  appear  again,  thus :  — 

"Gaunt.    My  oil-dried  lamps  and  time-bewasted  light 
Shall  be  extinct  with  age  and  endless  night: 
My  inch  of  taper  will  be  burnt  and  done, 
And  blindfold  Death  not  let  me  see  mv  son." 

Rich.  II.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

And  again,  thus  :  — 

"Fal.  Thou  art  our  admiral,  thou  bearest  the  lantern  in  the  poop,  — but 
tis  in  the  nose  of  thee:  thou  art  the  Knight  of  the  Burning  Lamp.  .  .  . 
I  never  see  thy  face  but  I  think  upon  hell-fire  and  Dives  that  lived  in  purple; 
for  there  he  is  in  his  robes,  burning,  burning.  If  thou  wert  any  way  given 
to  virtue,  I  would  swear  by  thy  face:  my  oath  should  be,  By  this  fire,  [that 
God's  angel] :  but  thou  art  altogether  given  over,  and  wert,  indeed,  but  for 
the  light  in  thy  face,  the  son  of  utter  darkness.  ...  0,  thou  art  a  per- 
petual triumph,  an  everlasting  bonfire  -light! "  —  1  Ben.  IV.  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Again,  says  Bacon,  — 

"  The  spirit  of  man  is  the  Lamp  of  God,  wherewith  he  searcheth  th» 
inwardness  of  all  secrets."  —  Advancement. 


224  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

And  one  of  the  speeches  in  the  Masque  concludes 
thus :  — 

"  Neither  do  I,  excellent  Prince,  restrain  my  speeches  to  dead  buildings 
only,  but  intend  it  also  to  other  foundations,  institutions,  and  creations; 
wherein  I  presume  the  more  to  speak  confidently,  because  I  am  warranted 
herein  by  your  own  wisdom,  who  have  made  the  first  fruits  of  your  actions 
of  State  to  institute  the  Honourable  Order  of  the  Helmet." 

Moreover,  there  are  well-marked  traces  of  the  lawyer's 
hand  throughout  the  play  itself:  indeed,  there  is  very  good 
internal  evidence  that  the  piece  was  written  expressly  for 
this  occasion.  And  it  is  evident  that  the  writer  of  this 
letter  had  not  only  invoked  the  aid  of  the  "  dozen  young 
gentlemen  of  Gray's  Inn  "  and  their  renowned  compeers  of 
the  Inner  Temple,  but  had  also  put  in  requisition  the  ser- 
vices of  his  friend  of  the  Globe  theatre,  in  fulfilment  of  his 
engagement,  that  although  "  the  joint  Masque  of  the  Four 
Inns  of  Court"  had  failed,  at  least  Gray's  Inn  and  the 
courtly  Francis  Bacon  would  not  fail,  upon  any  occasion,  to 
make  an  adequate  "  demonstration  of  affection "  to  the 
Queen,  especially  when  expressly  called  upon  from  so  high 
a  source  as  her  Majesty's  prime  minister.  And  the  follow- 
ing passages,  in  particular,  would  seem  to  have  been  directly 
aimed  at  the  gowned  and  wigged  assembly,  before  whom  the 
play  was  there  first  produced :  — 

"Ant.  8.    By  what  rule,  sir? 

Dro.  S.  Marry,  sir,  by  a  rule  as  plain  as  the  plain  bald  pate  of  Father 
Time  himself. 

Ant.  S.    Let 's  hear  it. 

Dro.  S.  There 's  no  time  for  a  man  to  recover  his  hair  that  grows  bald 
by  nature. 

Ant.  S.    May  he  not  do  it  by  fine  and  recovery  ? 

Dro.  S.  Yes,  to  pay  a  fine  for  a  periwig,  and  recover  the  lost  hair  of 
another  man. 

Ant.  S.  Why  is  Time  such  a  niggard  of  hair,  being,  as  it  is,  so  plentiful 
an  excrement? 

Dro.  S.  Because  it  is  a  blessing  that  he  bestows  on  beasts :  and  what  he 
hath  scanted  men  in  hair,  he  hath  given  them  in  wit. 

Ant.  S.     Why,  but  there 's  many  a  man  hath  more  hair  than  wit. 


GESTA  GRAYORUM.  225 

Dro.  S.    Not  a  man  of  those  but  he  hath  the  wit  to  lose  his  hair." 

Dro.  S.    Thus  I  mend  it:  Time  himself  is  bald,  and  therefore,  to  the 
world's  end,  will  have  bald  followers. 
Ant.  S.    I  knew  'twould  be  a  bald  conclusion."  — Act  II.  8c.  2. 

The  whole  interest  of  the  fourth  act  turns  on  lawsuits, 
officers,  and  arrests.  Angelo,  the  goldsmith,  becomes  litig- 
ious:— 

"Ang.     This  touches  me  in  my  reputation.  — 
Either  consent  to  pay  this  sum  for  me, 
Or  I  attach  you  by  this  officer. 

Ant.  E.    Consent  to  pay  thee  that  I  never  had '? 
Arrest  me,  foolish  fellow,  if  thou  dar'st. 

Ang.    Here  is  thy  fee ;  arrest  him,  officer.  — 
I  would  not  spare  my  brother  in  this  case, 
If  he  should  scorn  me  so  apparently. 

Off.     I  do  arrest  you,  sir :  you  hear  the  suit. 

Ant.  E.    I  do  obey  thee,  till  I  give  thee  bail.  — 
But,  sirrah,  you  shall  buy  this  sport  as  dear, 
As  all  the  metal  in  your  shop  will  answer. 

Ang.     Sir,  sir,  I  shall  have  law  in  Ephesus, 
To  your  notorious  shame,  I  doubt  it  not."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

And  Dromio's  description  of  a  "  sergeant"  (a  bailiff),  must 
have  been  particularly  edifying  to  such  an  audience :  — 

"Adr.    Where  is  thy  master,  Dromio  ?  is  he  well  ? 

Dro.  S.    No,  he 's  in  Tartar  limbo,  worse  than  Hell: 
A  devil  in  an  everlasting  garment  hath  him, 
One  whose  hard  heart  is  button'd  up  with  steel; 
A  fiend,  a  fairy  pitiless  and  rough ; 
A  wolf,  nay,  worse,  a  fellow  all  in  buff; 
A  back-friend,  a  shoulder-clapper,  one  that  countermands 
The  passages  of  alleys,  creeks,  and  narrow  lands : 
A  hound  that  runs  counter,  and  yet  draws  dry  foot  well ; 
One  that,  before  the  judgment,  carries  poor  souls  to  Hell. 

Adr.     Why,  man,  what  is  the  matter? 

Dro.  S.    I  do  not  know  the  matter :  he  is  'rested  on  the  case." 

Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

Of  course,  it  is  not  impossible  that  William  Shakespeare, 
without  any  special  learning  in  the  law,  should  have  had 
some  vague  notion  of  what  was  meant  by  a  "fine  and 
recovery,"  or  an  action  "on  the  case";  but  (what  Lord 

15 


226  GESTA  GRAYORUM. 

Campbell  has  remarked  generally  on  the  legal  acquire- 
ments of  this  author)  the  entire  accuracy  of  his  use  of 
legal  terms  and  phrases  (a  kind  of  free-masonry  which  it 
would  be  dangerous  for  a  novice  to  undertake  to  handle), 
and  the  subtle  continuity  and  fitness  of  the  legal  ideas, 
analogies,  imagery,  and  expression,  which  are  woven  into 
the  very  texture  of  the  discourse,  in  the  many  places  in 
these  plays,  where  he  has  occasion  to  employ  them,  are  of 
such  a  nature  as  to  show,  beyond  the  reach  of  doubt,  that 
the  mental  habit  of  this  writer  was  that  of  a  professional 
lawyer  as  well  as  that  of  the  poet,  the  scholar,  and  the 
philosopher. 

Further,  on  Twelfth  Night,  the  Prince  ascended  his 
throne,  the  trumpets  sounded,  and  six  Knights  of  the  Hel- 
met entered,  dragging  three  monsters  as  prisoners,  announc- 
ing that  they  had  just  returned  from  aiding  the  Emperor 
of  Russia  against  the  Tartars,  and  with  the  help  of  Virtue 
and  Friendship  had  taken  Envy,  Malcontent,  and  Folly 
prisoners  ;  and  before  the  Masque  concluded,  the  King  at 
Arms  announced  an  ambassador  from  the  Emperor  with 
letters  thanking  the  Prince  and  his  Knights  for  their  aid  in 
driving  away  "  an  army  of  Bigarian  thieves  "  and  "  a  host 
of  Negro  Tartars."1  And  doubtless,  it  was  to  the  same 
wit  of  invention  that  Dromio  in  the  play  was  indebted  for 
his  "  Tartar  limbo  worse  than  Hell." 

On  the  first  of  February  following,  there  was  a  trium- 
phal procession  of  fifteen  barges  on  the  Thames,  with  stand- 
ards, pennants,  flags,  and  streamers,  music  and  trumpets, 
and  firing  of  ordnance,  in  honor  of  the  return  of  the  Prince 
of  Purpoole  from  Russia.  The  Queen  invited  him  to  land 
and  do  homage  at  Greenwich ;  but  he  sent  two  ambassa- 
dors with  an  apologetic  letter  to  decline  the  honor.  At  the 
Tower,  a  volley  of  ordnance  was  fired  by  the  Queen's  desire, 
and  he  was  received  at  Gray's  Inn  with  music  and  accla- 
mations. 

1  Shales.  Eng.,  by  G.  W.  Thornbury  (London),  II.  359. 


GESTA  GRAYORDM.  227 

At  Shrovetide,  the  Prince  and  his  train  went  to  Court, 
where  another  masque  was  performed  before  her  Majesty. 
The  actors  were  an  Esquire,  a  Tartar  page,  Proteus,  and 
two  Tritons,  Thamesis  and  Amphitrite ;  and  it  began  with 
a  hymn  to  Neptune.  The  Squire's  speech  contained  these 
lines  in  compliment  to  Elizabeth  :  — 

"  Excellent  Queen !  true  adamant  of  hearts, 
Out  of  that  sacred  garland  ever  grew 
Garlands  of  virtues,  beauties,  and  perfections, 
That  crowns  your  crown,  and  dims  your  fortune's  beams." 

The  Queen  was  much  pleased,  and  wished  it  had  been 
longer.  Next  day  the  gentlemen  were  presented  to  her  by 
the  Lord  Chamberlain :  she  gave  them  her  hand  to  kiss, 
commanding  Gray's  Inn  to  study  such  sports  for  her  fre- 
quent amusement.  The  same  night,  there  was  fighting  in 
the  barriers,  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  the  challengers  against 
the  Earl  of  Cumberland  and  the  defendants,  the  Prince  of 
Purpoole  winning  the  prize,  a  jewel  set  with  seventeen 
diamonds  and  four  rubies,  which  the  Queen  presented  with 
her  own  hand. 

Surely,  we  need  not  wonder  to  find  the  young  courtier, 
Francis  Bacon,  as  yet  only  Queen's  Counsel,  exerting  all 
the  powers  of  his  genius  in  the  invention  of  these  elegant, 
refined,  and  intellectual  entertainments,  in  which  his  great 
patrons  and  friends,  the  Earls  of  Essex  and  Southampton, 
took  so  large  a  share,  and  which  received  thus  the  signal 
countenance  and  favor  of  their  sovereign  mistress.  In 
fact,  his  contributions  to  these  royal  amusements  continued 
far  into  the  next  reign  and  until  he  became  Attorney-Gen- 
eral, when,  ceasing  to  be  an  author  in  them,  he  began  him- 
self to  be  the  recipient  of  like  honors  on  special  occasions. 
As  a  part  of  the  festivities  in  honor  of  the  nuptials  of  the 
Princess  Elizabeth  and  the  Elector  Palatine,  during  the 
Christmas  Revels  of  1612-13,  it  came  again  "to  Gray's  Inn 
and  the  Inner  Temple's  turn  to  come  with  their  Masque 
whereof  Sir  Francis  Bacon  was  the  chief  contriver,"  and 


228  FRAGMENTS. 

Mr.  Phineas  Pette  was  employed,  as  he  says,  "  by  the  Gen- 
tlemen of  Gray's  Inn.  whereof  Sir  Francis  Bacon  was  chief, 
to  bring  the  Masque  by  water  to  Whitehall,"  and  "  safely 
landed  it  at  the  Privy  Stairs."  The  subject  of  this  Masque, 
which  was  written  by  Francis  Beaumont,  was  "  the  Mar- 
riage of  the  River  of  Thames  to  Rhine." 1  In  the  next  year 
(Dec.  9lh,  1613),  Sir  Francis  Bacon  of  his  own  motion, 
having  been  made  Attorney-General  in  October  preceding, 
prepares  a  Masque  for  his  Majesty's  entertainment,  which, 
says  the  account,  "  will  stand  him  in  £2000,"  declining  to 
accept  a  contribution  towards  it  M  of  £500  from  Gray's  Inn 
and  Mr.  Yelverton,"  and  he  also  "  feasts  the  whole  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge,"  at  his  own  expense,  now  (as  Chamber- 
lain writes)  "  rivaling  Woolsey  in  magnificence  " ;  and  the 
year  after  (1613-14)  on  Twelfth  Night,  the  Gentlemen  of 
Gray's  Inn,  "  under  the  patronage  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon  " 
and  upon  occasion  of  the  marriage  of  the  Duke  of  Somer- 
set, exhibit  a  "  Masque  of  Flowers,"  which  was  printed,  and 
dedicated  by  the  authors  "to  the  Very  Honorable  Sir 
Francis  Bacon,  His  Majesty's  Attorney-General."  2 

§  8.    FRAGMENTS. 

Still  another  Masque,  or  two  fragments  (for  it  breaks 
into  two  pieces),  has  been  lately  brought  to  light  by  the 
researches  of  Dixon  and  Spedding.8  It  comes  from  the  same 
bundle  of  the  Lambeth  MSS.,  in  which  were  found  the 
speeches  for  the  Essex  Masque ;  but  it  is  a  separate  paper, 
in  a  handwriting  of  that  age,  without  date,  title,  heading,  or 
other  mark  of  a  strictly  historical  character,  to  indicate  its 
origin  or  purpose.  Mr.  Spedding  evidently  believes  the 
piece  to  have  been  written  by  Bacon  ;  and  that  such  was  the 
fact,  there  is  scarcely  any  room  for  doubt,  for  it  bears  the 
impress  of  Bacon's  mind  and  manner  in  every  line  of  it. 

1  Nichols'  Progr.  James  I.,  II.  587. 

«  Ibid.  II.  734. 

8  Pers.  Hist,  of  Lord  Bacon,  73;  Letters  and  Life,  I.  386-391. 


FRAGMENTS.  229 

There  is  nothing  to  show  that  it  was  originally  designed  as 
a  part  of  the  Essex  Masque,  and  the  internal  evidence  is 
very  strong  that  it  belonged  to  another  occasion,  as  early 
as  1594.  One  of  the  speakers  is  "  the  Squire "  as  usual, 
and  his  master  Erophilus  (Essex)  is  supposed  to  be  doubt- 
ing in  his  love  between  the  Queen  and  Philautia,  the  god- 
dess of  self-love  ;  and  the  fragment  begins  with  the  Squire's 
speech,  introducing  "two  wanderers,"  an  "Indian  youth," 
and  "the  attendant  or  conductor  to  the  Indian  prince," 
who  is  son  of  a  mighty  monarch  in  "  the  most  retired  part " 
of  the  "  West  Indias,  near  unto  the  fountain  of  the  great 
river  of  the  Amazons,"  whose  "  rare  happiness  in  all  things 
else  is  only  eclipsed  in  the  calamity  of  his  son,  this  young 
prince,  who  was  born  blind."  But  there  was  "  an  ancient 
prophecy  that  it  should  be  he  that  should  expel  the  Castil- 
ians,  a  nation  of  strangers,  which  as  a  scourge  hath  wound 
itself  about  the  body  of  that  continent,  though  it  hath  not 
pierced  near  the  heart  thereof."  And  this  "  fatal  glory " 
had  caused  the  King  his  father  "  to  visit  his  temples  with 
continual  sacrifices,  gifts,  and  observances,  to  solicit  his 
son's  cure  supernaturally."  But  at  last  an  oracle  was  de- 
livered "  out  of  one  of  the  holiest  vaults,"  to  the  effect  that 
he  should  resort  to  her  Majesty's  court  and  person,  and 
make  sacrifice  to  her,  if  he  would  be  restored  to  his  sight ; 
and  he  comes  with  a  "  high  conceit,  aiming  directly  at "  her 
Majesty's  self.  —  Here  the  fragment  breaks  off.  When  it 
begins  again,  her  Majesty  has  "  wrought  the  strangest  in- 
novation that  ever  was  in  the  world":  his  blindness  has 
been  supernaturally  cured,  and  he  has  become  "  Seeing- 
Love."  Philautia  is  several  times  named  in  the  piece  ; 
there  are  illusions  in  it  to  the  Squire's  master,  which  could 
be  no  other  than  "  Erophilus  " ;  and  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
story  is  strictly  in  keeping  with  the  frame  and  character  of 
the  Essex  Masque.  One  Latin  quotation  appears  in  both, 
"that  which  the  poet  saith  was  never  granted  Amare  et 
sapere  " ;  which  is  quoted  also  in  the  Essay  on  Love  thus : 


230  FRAGMENTS. 

Amare  et  Sapere  vix  Deo  conceditur ;  a  circumstance,  from 
which  it  might  be  inferred,  that  this  portion  had  been  for 
some  reason  laid  aside  by  the  writer.  And  it  is  curious  to 
observe,  that  this  ancient  adage  is  introduced  into  the 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida  "  in  these  lines :  — 

"  Cres.  But  you  are  wise, 

Or  else  you  love  not ;  for  to  be  wise  and  love 
Exceeds  man's  might;  that  dwells  with  gods  above."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

Mr.  Douce  thought  Shakespeare  must  have  gotten  it  from 
Taverner's  Translation  of  Publius  Spiis;1  but  it  is  very 
certain  that  this  author  had  no  occasion  to  go  to  Transla- 
tions for  his  Latin  proverbs. 

This  fragment  does  not  in  any  way  appear  to  have  formed 
a  part  of  the  Essex  Masque  as  it  was  actually  exhibited. 
But  whether  it  were  written  for  this  Masque,  or  some  other, 
the  more  important  thing  to  be  noted  here  is  the  fact,  that, 
in  it,  the  Baconian  poetical  prose  actually  runs  into  Shake- 
spearean rhymed  verse,  under  our  very  eyes,  thus :  — 

"And  at  last,  this  present  year,  out  of  one  of  the  holiest  vaults  was 
delivered  to  him  an  oracle  in  these  words :  — 

Seated  between  the  Old  World  and  the  New, 
A  land  there  is  no  other  land  may  touch, 
Where  reigns  a  Queen  in  peace  and  honour  true ; 
Stories  or  fables  do  describe  no  such. 
Never  did  Atlas  such  a  burden  bear, 
As  she,  in  holding  up  the  world  opprest ; 
Supplying  with  her  virtue  everywhere 
Weakness  of  friends,  errors  of  servants  best. 
No  nation  breeds  a  warmer  blood  for  war, 
And  yet  she  calms  them  by  her  majesty: 
No  age  hath  ever  wits  refined  so  far, 
And  yet  she  calms  them  by  her  policy : 
To  her  thy  son  must  make  his  sacrifice, 
If  he  will  have  the  morning  of  his  eyes. 

This  oracle  hath  been  both  our  direction  hitherto,  and  the  cause  of  our 
wearisome  pilgrimage;  we  do  now  humbly  beseech  your  Majesty  that  we 

make  experience  whether  we  be  at  the  end  of  our  journey  or  not 

Masque,  Spedding's  Letters  and  Life,  I.  388. 

1  See  White's  Shakespeare,  IX.,  Notes,  153. 


FRAGMENTS.  231 

Now,  if  there  be  any  trace  of  all  this  in  the  plays,  we 
shall  expect  to  find  it  in  one  of  those  which  were  written 
at  about  the  same  date,  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  " 
(1594),  or  the  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  (1595),  and  while  the 
same  ideas  were  fresh  in  the  author's  memory,  and  similar 
visions  of  the  Indies  were  still  floating  in  his  imagination. 
Let  us  go,  first,  straight  to  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream." 
In  the  first  act,  we  find  no  sign  of  it,  but  in  the  second,  the 
following  passages  come  up  in  their  order,  in  which  the 
careful  listener  will  scarcely  fail,  at  once,  to  recognize  their 
identities,  and  catch  the  ring  of  the  same  metal :  — 

"Puck.    How  now,  spirit!  whither  wander  you? 
Fairy.    Over  hill,  over  dale, 

Through  bush,  through  brier, 
Over  park,  over  pale, 

Through  flood,  through  fire, 
I  do  wander  everywhere, 
Swifter  than  the  moony  sphere ;  — 


Puck.    I  am  that  merry  wanderer  of  the  night. 

The  King  doth  keep  his  revels  here  to-night. 

Take  heed  the  Queen  come  not  within  his  sight; 

For  Oberon  is  passing  fell  and  wrath, 

Because  that  she,  as  her  attendant,  hath 

A  lovely  boy,  stofnfrom  an  Indian  king: 

She  never  had  so  sweet  a  changeling; 

And  jealous  Oberon  would  have  the  child 

Knight  of  his  train,  to  trace  the  forests  wild; 

But  she  perforce  withholds  the  loved  boy, 

Crowns  him  with  flowers,  and  makes  him  all  her  joy. 

Tit.  Why  art  thou  here, 

Come  from  the  farthest  steep  of  India, 
But  that,  forsooth,  the  bouncing  Amazon, 
Your  buskin'd  mistress  and  your  warriour  love, 
To  Theseus  must  be  wedded  ? 


Ober.    I  do  but  beg  a  little  changeling  boy, 
To  be  my  henchman. 

Tit.  Set  your  heart  at  rest: 

The  Fairy-land  buys  not  the  child  of  me. 
His  mother  was  a  vot'ress  of  my  order; 


232  FRAGMENTS. 

And,  in  the  spiced  Indian  air,  by  night, 
Full  oft  hath  she  gossip'd  by  my  side.  — 


Which  she,  with  pretty  and  with  swimming  gait 
Following  her  womb,  (then  rich  with  my  young  squire,) 
Would  imitate,  and  sail  upon  the  land 
To  fetch  me  trifles,  and  return  again, 
As  from  a  voyage,  rich  with  merchandize. 


Puck.  I  remember. 

Ober.    That  very  time  I  saw  (but  thou  could'st  not), 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  Earth, 
Cupid  all  arm'd:  a  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  West, 
And  loos' d  his  love-shaft  smartly  from  his  bow, 
As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts : 
But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  fiery  shaft 
Quench'd  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  wat'ry  moon, 
And  the  imperial  vot'ress  passed  on, 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free.''''  —  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

It  is  plain  we  have  here  the  same  idea  of  the  "  wander- 
ers," the  "  Indian  youth  "  born  blind,  or  Cupid,  "  the  attend- 
ant," and  even  "  the  Squire  "  (cropping  out  in  a  curious 
way),  coming  from  the  same  "most  retired  part "  or  "farthest 
steep "  of  the  Indies,  near  the  fountains  of  the  Amazon ; 
and  the  same  blind  boy,  Cupid,  "  armed  after  the  Indian 
manner  with  bow  and  arrows,"  or  "  Cupid  all  arm'd,"  in  his 
ordinary  habit  "  an  Indian  naked,"  but  now  "  for  comeliness 
clad,"  has  arrived  in  that  land,  — 

"  Where  reigns  a  Queen  in  peace  and  honour  true ; 
Stories  or  fables  do  describe  no  such. 
Never  did  Atlas  such  a  burden  bear, 
As  she,  in  holding  up  the  world  opprest; 
Supplying  with  her  virtue  everywhere 
Weakness  of  friends,  errors  of  servants  best; "  — 

and,  with  "  high  conceit,"  he  lets  fly  his  love-shaft,  "  aim- 
ing directly  at "  her  Majesty  ;  for  he  has  come  to  make  his 
sacrifice  to  "  the  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  West,"  that  he 
may  have  u  the  morning  of  his  eyes."  And  in  that  "  fatal 
glory  "  that  was  laid  upon  him  by  "  an  ancient  prophecy," 
that  he  should  rid  his  native  India  of  that  Castilian  scourge, 


FRAGMENTS.  233 

which  had  "  wound  itself  about  the  body  of  that  continent," 
but  had  not  "  pierced  near  the  heart  thereof"  we  have  another 
touch  of  those  same  "  principles  more  deep  and  fatal,"  de- 
rived from  "  the  ancient  Cupid,"  which  are  of  such  potency 
as  to  "pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts"  or  as  when 

—  "  true  lovers  have  been  ever  cross'd, 
It  stands  as  an  edict  in  destiny."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

In  the  style  and  manner  of  the  versified  part,  in  the 
Queen  reigning  "  in  peace  and  honour  true,"  and  in  the 
particular  mention  of  her  "  virtue,"  her  "  majesty,"  and  her 
"  policy,"  surpassing  all  "  stories  or  fables,"  we  are  re- 
minded, at  once,  of  the  compliment  to  her  memory  in  the 
"  Henry  VIII."  ;  the  line  ending  with  "  everywhere,"  so  often 
repeated  in  this  very  play  of  "A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,"  falls  on  the  ear  like  the  refrain  of  the  same  song ; 
and  one  line  is  almost  repeated  from  the  third  part  of  the 
"  Henry  VI.,"  — 

"  Thou  art  no  Atlas  for  so  great  a  weight " ;  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

and  another,  from  the  "  As  You  Like  It,"  — 

"  That  every  eye,  which  in  this  print  looks, 
Shall  see  thy  virtue  witness'd  everywhere;  "  — Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

and  the  last  line  closes  with  a  clear  ring  of  the  true  Shake- 
spearean metal.  Certainly,  both  these  oracles  must  have 
been  delivered  out  of  one  and  the  same  holiest  vault,  or 
cave,  and  that  no  other  than  Prospero's  "  full,  poor  cell." 

And  if  this  piece  as  a  whole  falls  far  below  his  higher 
flights,  it  is  at  least  equal,  in  the  rhythm  and  swing  of  it,  to 
these  lines  from  the  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  which  have  been 
cited  by  Mr.  White  as  indubitably  exhibiting  the  hand  of 
Shakespeare  in  that  early  play :  — 

"  Tit.    In  peace  and  honour  rest  you  here,  my  sons; 
Rome's  readiest  champions,  repose  you  here  in  rest, 
Secure  from  worldly  chances  and  mishaps ! 
Here  lurks  no  treason,  here  no  envy  swells, 
Here  grow  no  damned  grudges ;  here  are  no  storms, 


234  FRAGMENTS. 

No  voice,  but  silence  and  eternal  sleep. 

In  peace  and  honour,  rest  you  here,  my  sons !  "  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

Or,  to  these,  again,  from  the  "  Love's  Labor 's  Lost "  :  — 

"  Bir.    Who  sees  the  heavenly  Eosaline, 
That,  like  a  rude  and  savage  man  of  Inde, 
At  the  first  opening  of  the  gorgeous  east, 
Bows  not  her  vassal  head,  and,  stricken  blind, 
Kisses  the  bare  ground  with  obedient  breast  ? 
What  peremptory  eagle-sighted  eye 
Dares  look  upon  the  heaven  of  her  brow, 
That  is  not  blinded  by  her  majesty? "  — Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

But  we  have  a  distinct  repetition  of  almost  the  same 
ideas  and  expression  in  the  following  lines  from  the 
"  Richard  II.,"  written  soon  afterwards  :  — 

"  K.  Rich.   We'll  calm  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  you,  your  son."  — Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  Duch.    To  seek  out  sorrow  that  dwells  everywhere."  — Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

"  Gaunt.    This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  scepter' d  isle, 
This  earth  of  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 
This  other  Eden,  demi-paradise; 
This  fortress,  built  by  Nature  for  herself, 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war; 
This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world, 
This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea, 
Which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a  wall, 
Or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house, 
Against  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands ; 
This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 
This  nurse,  this  teeming  womb  of  royal  kings, 
Fear'd  by  their  breed  and  famous  for  their  birth, 
Renowned  for  their  deeds  as  far  from  home, 
For  Christian  service  and  true  chivalry, 
As  is  the  sepulchre  in  stubborn  Jewry, 
Of  the  world's  ransom,  blessed  Mary's  son : 
This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land, 
Dear  for  her  reputation  through  the  world, 
Is  now  leas'd  out,  (I  die  pronouncing  it,) 
Like  to  a  tenement  or  pelting  farm."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"  0,  forbid  it,  God, 
That,  in  a  Christian  climate,  souh  refin'd, 


FRAGMENTS.  235 

Should  shew  so  heinous,  black,  obscene  a  deed ! 

And  in  this  seat  of  peace  tumultuous  wars."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

Is  not  this  the  same  land,  seat,  breed  of  men,  wits  refined, 
majesty  ?  —  and  the  "  stories  or  fables  "  are  merely  partic- 
ularized in  the  play,  with  a  greater  amplification  through- 
out ;  but  the  tone,  style,  and  manner  are  the  same.  And 
"  the  ancient  fable  of  Atlas,"  says  Bacon,  "  that  stood  fixed, 
and  bare  up  the  heaven  from  falling,"  was  "  meant  of  the 
poles  or  axletree  of  heaven  ;  so  assuredly  men  have  a  desire 
to  have  an  Atlas  or  axletree  within,  to  keep  them  from 
fluctuation " ;  and  the  metaphor  is  repeated  in  the  play, 
thus : — 

"  (Strong  as  the  axletree 

On  which  heaven  rides) " ;  —  Troi.  and  Cr.  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

and  in  the  letter  to  Essex,  thus :  — 

"  And  this  is  the  axletree  whereupon  I  have  turned  and  shall  turn." 

The  Masque  proceeds  thus :  — 

"  Your  Majesty's  sacred  presence  hath  wrought  the  strangest  innovation 
that  ever  was  in  the  world.  You  have  here  before  you  Seeing-Love,  a 
Prince  indeed,  but  of  greater  territories  than  all  the  Indies:  armed  after 
the  Indian  manner  with  bow  and  arrow,  and  when  he  is  in  his  ordinary  habit 
an  Indian  naked,  or  attired  with  feathers,  though  now  for  comeliness  clad. 

["Bur.  If  you  would  conjure  in  her  you  must  make  a  circle ;  if  conjure 
up  love  in  her  in  his  true  likeness,  he  must  appear  naked  and  blind.  Can 
you  blame  her,  then,  being  a  maid  yet  ros'd  over  with  the  virgin  crimson 
of  modesty,  if  she  deny  the  appearance  of  a  naked  blind  boy  in  her  naked 
seeing  self."  — Henry  V.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2.] 

To  procure  his  pardon  for  the  strategem  which  he  hath  used,  — 

["  Alack,  alack !  that  Heaven  should  practice  strategems 
Upon  so  soft  a  subject  as  myself!  "  — Bom.  and  J.,  Act  J 1 1.  Sc.  5.] 

and  to  show  his  thankfulness  for  his  sight  which  he  hath  by  you  received, 
he  presents  your  Majesty  with  all  that  is  his  ;  his  gift  and  property  to  be 
ever  young ; 

["Then  crush  this  herb  into  Lysander's  eye; 
Whose  liquor  hath  this  virtuous  property, 
To  take  from  thence  all  error  with  his  might, 
And  make  his  eve-balls  roll  with  wonted  sight." 

Mid.  N.  Dr.,  Act  111.  Sc.  2. 


236  FRAGMENTS. 

"  Is  there  not  charms, 
By  which  the  property  of  youth  and  maidhood 
May  be  abused?  "  —  Oth.  Act  I.  Sc.  1.] 

his  wings  of  liberty  to  fly  from  one  to  another;  his  bow  and  arrows  to  wound 
where  it  pleaseth  you ; 

["  And  therefore  is  wing'd  Cupid  painted  blind : 

Wings,  and  no  eyes,  figure  unheedy  haste."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  And  therefore  hath  the  wind-swift  Cupid  wings." 

Rom.  and  J.,  Act  II.  Sc.  5.] 

and  withal  humbly  desireth  that,  though  Philautia  hath  hitherto  so  pre- 
vailed with  your  Majesty,  as  you  would  never  accept  him  while  he  was  an 
imperfect  piece,  yet  now  he  is  accomplished  by  your  Majesty's  grace  and 
means,  that  you  will  vouchsafe  him  entertainment.  For  all  the  challenge 
that  ever  hath  been  made  to  Love  or  his  band,  hath  been,  if  it  be  rightly 
interpreted,  only  to  his  want  of  eyesight. 

["  Nurse.  Faith,  here  't  is.    Romeo 

Is  banished ;  and  all  the  world  to  nothing, 
That  he  dares  ne'er  come  back  to  challenge  you." 

Bom.  and  J.,  Act  III.  Sc.  5.] 

Lovers  are  charged  to  aspire  too  high :  it  is  as  the  poor  dove,  which  when 
her  eyes  are  sealed  still  mounteth  up  into  the  air.  They  are  charged  with 
descending  too  low ;  it  is  as  the  poor  mole,  which  seeing  not  the  clearness 
of  the  air  diveth  into  the  darkness  of  the  earth. 

["  Her.     O  cross !  too  high  to  be  enthrall'd  to  low !  —  ... 
O  spite !  too  old  to  be  engaged  to  young !  —  ... 
O  Hell!  to  choose  love  by  another's  eyes!  —  ... 
Lys.     The  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up." 

Mid.  N.  Dr.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1.] 

They  are  sometimes  charged  with  presuming  too  far:  it  is  as  the  blind 
man,  who  looketh  in  humanity  that  any  seeing  man  should  give  him  way. 
They  are  accused  sometimes  to  be  timorous :  it  is  as  the  blind  stalks  and 
lifts  high  when  the  way  is  smooth.  They  are  taxed  to  be  credulous:  why 
the  blind  are  ever  led.  They  are  said  at  other  times  to  be  incredulous :  the 
blind  must  feel  that  which  it  sufficeth  another  to  see.  How  can  they  know 
times  justly,  that  go  by  the  clock  and  not  by  the  sun?  And  how  can  they 
know  measure,  that  see  as  well  a  mote  as  a  beam. 

["  Bir.    You  found  his  mote ;  the  King  your  mote  did  see ; 
But  I  a  beam  do  find  in  each  of  thee." 

Love's  L.  L.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  Nor  dare  I  chide  the  world- without-end  hour, 
Whilst  I  (my  sovereign)  watch  the  clock  for  you."  —  £»rene<.] 


FRAGMENTS.  237 

This  makes  poor  lovers  used  as  blind  horses,  ever  going  round  about  in  a 
wheel :  and  this  makes  them  ever  unfortunate,  for  when  blind  love  leads 
blind  fortune,  how  can  they  keep  out  of  the  ditch  ? 

["  Thisb.     0 !  —  As  truest  horse,  that  yet  would  never  tire. 

Pyr.     If  I  were  fair  Thisby,  I  were  only  thine :  — 

Quin.     O  monstrous !  O  strange !  we  are  haunted. 
Pray,  Masters !  fly,  Masters !  help.  [Exeunt  Chums. 

Pttck.    I'll  follow  you,  I'll  lead  you  about  a  round, 
Through  bog,  through  bush,  through  brake,  through  brier: 
Sometime  a  horse  I'll  be,  sometime  a  hound, 

A  hog,  a  headless  bear,  sometime  a  fire ; 
And  neigh,  and  bark,  and  grunt,  and  roar,  and  burn, 
Like  horse,  hound,  hog,  bear,  fire,  at  every  turn." 

Slid.  N.  Dr.,  Act  111.  Sc.  1.] 

But  now  that  Love  hath  gotten  possession  of  his  sight,  there  can  be  no 
error  in  policy  or  dignity  to  receive  him.  Nay,  Philautia  herself  will  sub- 
scribe to  his  admission.  Then  your  Majesty  shall  first  see  your  own  inval- 
uable value,  and  thereby  discern  that  the  favours  you  vouchsafe  are  pure 
gifts  and  no  exchanges.  And  if  any  be  so  happy  as  to  have  his  affection 
accepted,  yet  your  prerogative  is  such  as  they  stand  bound,  and  your 
Majesty  is  free:  .  .  . 

[In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free.] 

Your  Majesty  shall  obtain  the  curious  window  into  hearts  of  which  the 
ancients  speak ;  thereby  you  shall  discern  protestation  from  fulness  of  heart, 
ceremonies  and  fashions  from  a  habit  of  mind  that  can  do  no  other,  affect- 
ation from  affection." 

["  Evans.  Why  it  is  affectations. 


But  can  you  affection  the  'oman  ?  "  —  Mer.  Wives,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  Bir.     Studies  my  lady?    Mistress  look  on  me: 
Behold  the  window  of  my  heart,  mine  eye."  —  Love's  L.  L.,Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  To  thee  I  do  commend  my  watchful  soul, 
Ere  I  let  fall  the  windows  of  mine  eyes."  —  Rich.  III.  Act  V.  Sc.  3.] 

Again  he  says :  — 

"  But  contrariwise  her  Majesty,  not  liking  to  make  windows  intp  men's 
hearts  and  secret  thoughts  "  * 

And  this    same   window  of  the   ancients,  appears   again 

thus  :  — 

"  Let  the  first  precept  then  (on  which  the  knowledge  of  others  turns)  be 
set  down  as  this:  that  we  obtain  (as  far  as  we  can)  that  window  which 

i  Letter  drafted  for  Walsingham  (1590),  Spedd.  Let.  and  Life,  I.  98. 


238  FRAGMENTS. 

Momus  required;  who,  seeing  in  the  frame  of  man's  heart  such  angles  and 
recesses,  found  fault  that  there  was  not  a  window  to  look  into  its  mysteri- 
ous and  tortuous  windings."  * 

It  is  very  plain  that  this  Masque  was  written  to  be  ex- 
hibited before  the  Queen.  These  extracts  will  be  sufficient 
for  the  purpose  of  comparison.  William  Shakespeare  could 
never  have  seen  this  Masque.  The  "  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,"  though  not  printed  until  1600,  may  possibly  have 
been  performed  on  the  stage  before  the  Masque  was  written  ; 
but  it  would  be  idle  to  imagine  any  other  kind  of  plagiarism 
or  imitation  to  be  possible  here,  than  that  which  one  and 
the  same  full  mind  may  unconsciously  make  upon  itself; 
and  these  outcroppings  of  the  same  ideas,  words,  and  ex- 
pressions, in  compositions  written  at  about  the  same  time, 
are  altogether  too  numerous,  striking,  palpable,  and  peculiar 
to  admit  of  explanation  on  any  supposition  of  the  common 
usage  of  the  time,  or  accidental  coincidence.  And  since 
the  u  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  "  has  been  assigned,  almost 
by  general  consent  of  the  critics,  to  the  year  1594,  these 
resemblances  to  the  Masque  may  be  taken  as  some  evidence 
that  these  fragments  belong  to  some  occasion,  which  was 
at  least  as  early  as  1594. 

i  Trans,  of  the  Be  Aug.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  271. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MORE  DIRECT  PROOFS. 

"  Most  true  ;  if  ever  truth  were  pregnant  by  circumstance ;  that,  which  you  hear, 
you  '11  swear  you  see,  there  is  such  unity  in  the  proofs  :  .  .  .  the  majesty  of  the 
creature  in  resemblance  of  the  mother."  —  Winter's  Tale. 

§  1.   THE   RICHARD    II. 

The  statements  and  allusions  contained  in  Bacon's 
"  Apology "  or  defence  against  certain  imputations  con- 
cerning his  conduct  towards  the  Earl  of  Essex,  which  was 
addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  and  published  soon 
after  the  death  of  Essex  in  1601,  made  in  relation  to  an 
answer  which  he  gave  the  Queen,  towards  the  close  of  the 
year  1599,  as  he  tells  us,  in  "a  matter  which  had  some 
affinity  "  with  Essex's  cause,  and  also  with  a  certain  "  sedi- 
tious prelude "  then  lately  dedicated  to  the  factious  Earl, 
being  Dr.  Hay  ward's  story  of  the  "  First  Yeare  of  King 
Henry  IV.,"  at  which  the  Queen,  thinking  there  was  treason 
in  it,  was  "  mightily  incensed,"  when  interpreted  by  the 
light  of  the  accompanying  history  and  the  personal  relations 
of  the  parties,  will  be  seen  to  amount  to  nothing  less  than 
a  clear  and  express  admission  out  of  his  own  mouth  that 
he  was  himself  the  author  of  the  play  of  Richard  II. ;  for  it 
will  be  made  quite  certain,  that  this  tragedy  was  precisely 
the  "matter"  alluded  to,  and  no  other.  It  will  further 
appear  to  be  highly  probable,  that  the  Queen  herself  at 
least  strongly  suspected,  and  that  even  the  Lords  of  the 
Privy  Council  had  some  inkling,  that  such  was  the  fact. 
If  this  be  shown  to  be  so,  it  will  be  equivalent  of  itself  to 
a  final  settlement  of  the  question  in  hand,  and  it  will  re- 
quire some  attention. 


240  THE  RICHARD  II. 

That  exquisite  disgrace  which  the  Queen  had  been  con- 
strained to  put  upon  him,  in  1595,  had  been  comfortably 
solaced  in  the  consideration  that  her  Majesty  did  but  re- 
serve and  not  reject  him,  in  the  princely  entertainment  and 
masque  at  Essex's  house,  near  the  close  of  that  year,  and 
in  the  munificent  grant  of  Twickenham  Park  immediately 
following.  The  tragedy  of  Richard  II.  was  most  probably 
written  after  this  date,  and  during  the  year  1596.  There  is 
no  mention  on  record  of  its  existence  before  it  was  entered 
and  printed  in  1597.  Malone  and  some  others  have  sup- 
posed it  might  have  been  written  as  early  as  1593-4,  and, 
proceeding  upon  the  assumption  that  the  mention  made  by 
Camden  and  by  Bacon  of  the  tragedy  of  Richard  II.,  in 
their  accounts  of  the  trials  of  Essex  and  his  co-conspirat©rs, 
as  being  an  "  out-dated "  and  an  "  old "  play,  must  have 
referred  to  some  older  play  by  another  author,  they  were 
also  led  to  infer,  both  that  some  such  old  play  existed,  and 
that  it  was  that  older  play,  and  not  this  of  Shakespeare, 
which  was  there  alluded  to.  But  all  this  is  evidently  a 
mistake ;  for  the  Attorney-General,  Coke,  in  his  speech  on 
the  trial  of  Merrick,  expressly  says,  that  "  forty  shillings 
were  given  to  Phillips  the  player"  to  play  this  tragedy 
before  Essex's  men.  This  was  no  other  than  Augustine 
Phillips  of  Shakespeare's  company,  and  the  manager  at  the 
Globe  and  Blackfriars  ;  and  it  is  altogether  improbable 
that  any  other  play  of  that  name  would  be  in  use  by  that 
company,  at  that  time,  and  none  such  is  known  to  have 
existed.  During  the  year  1595,  Daniel  published  a  first 
and  second  edition  of  his  "  Civil  Wars,"  a  poem  on  the 
same  subject.  Mr.  White  observes  some  incidents  in  this 
second  edition,  which  lead  him  to  infer  that  Daniel  may 
have  used  the  play  to  correct  his  piece  ;  but  the  inference 
of  Mr.  Knight,  that  the  resemblances  are  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  writer  of  the  play  had  read  Daniel's  poem,  in  the 
course  of  his  preparations  for  his  work,  and  so,  that  the 
play  was  written  after  the  poem,  would  seem  to  be  more 


THE  RICHARD  n.  241 

probable ;  or  both  writers  may  have  drawn  from  the  same 
historical  sources,  independently  of  each  other ;  and  this 
view  would  limit  the  production  of  the  play  to  the  year 
1596.  In  that  year,  Essex  is  burning  the  Spanish  fleet  at 
Cadiz,  and  the  Pope  issues  his  Bull  authorizing  Queen 
Elizabeth's  subjects  to  depose  her  ;  but  it  is  not  until  about 
1598,  that  the  Irish  kernes  under  Tyrone  and  O'Neil 
begin  to  be  troublesome,  and  wars  arise,  to  which  there 
might  seem  to  be  some  allusion  in  the  play,  as  in  these 
lines :  — 

"  K.  Rich.  Now  for  our  Irish  wars: 

We  must  supplant  these  rough  rug-headed  kernes  "; 

but  there  were  just  such  rebels  and  wars  in  Ireland,  in  the 
time  of  Richard  II.,  and  to  these,  as  recorded  in  Holinshed, 
it  is  much  more  probable,  if  not  quite  certain,  the  allusions 
in  the  play  were  intended  to  refer:  nor  is  there  any.ground 
on  which  it  can  safely  be  concluded  that  the  play  was 
written  before  1596.  But,  in  1594,  machinations  were  on 
foot  among  the  Jesuits,  having  for  their  object  the  dethrone- 
ment of  Elizabeth,  and  looking  to  Essex  as  in  the  interest 
of  some  successor ;  for,  in  that  year,  a  certain  book  was 
dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  under  the  sham-name  of 
Doleman  (a  Jesuit  priest)  ;  but  Parsons,  Allen,  and  Ingle- 
field  were  the  true  authors  of  it.1  This  book  set  up  the 
title  of  the  Infanta  of  Spain,  and  perhaps  also  gave  en- 
couragement to  some  supposed  right  of  Essex,  derived  from 
Thomas  of  Woodstock,  son  of  Edward  III. ;  and  the  pre- 
tensions of  Essex  were  already  a  subject  of  speculation  in 
the  public  mind.  When  Essex  visited  Bacon,  at  Twicken- 
ham Park,  in  October  1595,  and  made  him  the  gift  of  land 
in  requital  of  his  services,  he  answered  by  telling  the  story 
of  the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  "  had  turned  all  his  estate  into 
obligations,"  and  said :  "  My  Lord,  I  see  I  must  be  your 
homager  and  hold  land  of  your  gift ;  but  do  you  know  the 

i  Camden's  Ann.  of  Eliz. ;  Kennett's  Eng.  II.  576. 
16 


242  THE  RICHARD   II. 

manner  of  doing  homage  in  law  ?  Always  it  is  with  a 
saving  of  his  faith  to  the  king  and  his  other  lords  ;  and 
therefore,  my  lord,  I  can  be  no  more  yours  than  I  was,  and 
it  must  be  with  the  ancient  savings."  There  is  no  certain 
evidence  that  the  play  was  produced  long  before  it  was 
printed,  in  1597,  and  the  appearance  of  such  a  play,  on  the 
stage,  at  this  time,  could  not  fail  to  attract  the  public  atten- 
tion. Its  bearing  upon  the  incipient  projects  of  Essex 
(though  not  intended  so  to  refer)  could  not  fail  to  be  per- 
ceived ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  play  received  the  counte- 
nance of  Essex,  and  excited  the  jealousy  of  the  Queen. 
When  first  printed,  no  name  of  the  author  appeared  on  the 
title-page,  and  the  entire  scene  of  deposing  King  Richard, 
containing  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  lines  (says  Malone), 
was  omitted.  Malone  attributes  the  omission  to  fear  of  the 
Queen's  displeasure,  no  doubt  correctly ;  but  he  falls  into 
the  mistake  of  supposing  that  Dr.  Hay  ward's  book  was  the 
cause  of  that  fear ;  whereas  that  book  was  not  published 
until  the  year  1599.  Moreover,  these  lines  would  very 
probably  be  interdicted  by  the  Master  of  the  Revels  as 
censor  of  the  press. 

In  November  1595,  the  Queen  had  taken  occasion  to 
show  to  Essex  a  certain  book  (probably  that  of  Doleman) 
in  such  manner  as  greatly  to  alarm  him  ;  but  somehow  all 
was  made  fair  again,  with  the  help  of  a  splendid  entertain- 
ment and  the  dramatic  genius  of  Bacon.  And,  in  1596, 
after  the  return  of  Essex  from  Cadiz,  Bacon  wrote  him  an 
urgent  letter  of  advice  "  to  divert  her  Majesty  from  this 
impression  of  a  martial  greatness,"  for  the  reason  that  there 
could  not  be  "  a  more  dangerous  image  than  this  repre- 
sented to  any  monarch  living,  much  more  to  a  lady,  and  of 
her  Majesty's  apprehension."  In  the  latter  part  of  1597, 
Essex's  discontent  about  the  matter  of  the  Earl  of  Notting- 
ham had  been  appeased  with  the  office  of  Earl  Marshal  of 
England,  and  in  the  next  year,  the  question  of  sending  a 
general   against  the   Irish   rebels   came  up.     The  Queen 


THE  RICHARD  II.  243 

wished  to  appoint  Sir  William  Knollys.  Essex  urged  Sir 
George  Carew,  and  plainly  wanted  to  go  himself.  In  the 
discussion  which  arose  he  was  offended,  and  turned  his 
back  on  the  Queen.  Her  Majesty  marched  up  and  boxed 
his  ears.  He  was  exceedingly  wroth,  laid  his  hand  on  his 
sword,  and,  swearing  he  would  not  have  endured  so  much 
from  Henry  VIII.  himself,  left  the  presence  in  high  dudgeon. 
This  eclipse  continued  from  July  to  October  1598,  when 
the  affair  was  apparently  reconciled,  and  he  received  the 
chief  command  for  Ireland,  and  was  commissioned  Lord 
Lieutenant  on  the  12th  of  March  1598-9,  the  Queen  re- 
luctantly yielding.  Whereupon,  Bacon  writes  him  a  letter 
of  congratulation  in  which  he  says :  "  That  your  Lordship 
is  in  statu  quo  prius,  no  man  taketh  greater  gladness  than 
I  do ;  the  rather,  because  I  assure  myself  that  of  your 
eclipses,  as  this  has  been  the  longest,  it  shall  be  the  last. 
As  the  comical  poet  saith,  Neque  illam  tu  satis  noveras, 
neque  te  ilia  ;  hoc  ubi  Jit,  ibi  non  vtvitur."  And  in  con- 
clusion, he  takes  care  to  express  himself  as  bearing  unto 
his  Lordship,  "  after  her  Majesty,  of  all  public  persons  the 
second  duty."  1 

Her  disposition  towards  Essex  had  been  kindly  and  for- 
giving, but  she  was  doubtful  of  him,  and  kept  a  watchful 
eye  upon  his  courses.  As  afterwards  it  became  evident 
enough,  all  his  movements  had  reference  to  a  scheme  al- 
ready formed  in  his  mind  to  depose  the  Queen  by  the  help 
of  the  Catholic  party  and  the  Irish  rebels.  He  goes  to 
Ireland  in  March,  1599,  and  after  various  doubtful  pro- 
ceedings and  a  treasonable  truce  with  Tyrone,  he  suddenly 
returns  to  London  in  October  following,  with  a  select 
body  of  friends,  without  the  command,  and  to  the  great 
surprise  and  indignation  of  the  Queen;  and,  a  few  days 
afterwards,  finds  himself  under  arrest,  and  a  quasi-prisoner 
in  the  house  of  the  Lord-Keeper.  During  this  year,  Dr. 
Hayward's  pamphlet  appeared :  it  was  nothing  more  than  a 

l  Letters  and  Life  by  Spedding,  II.  104. 


244  THE  RICHARD  II. 

history  of  the  deposing  of  King  Richard  II.,  says  Malone. 
It  was  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  without  the  authors 
name  on  the  title-page  ;  but  that  of  John  Hayward  was 
signed  to  the  dedication.  This  Hayward  was  a  Doctor  of 
Civil  Law,  a  scholar,  and  a  distinguished  historian  of  that 
age,  who  afterwards  held  an  office  in  Chancery  under 
Bacon.  This  pamphlet  followed  on  the  heels  of  the  play, 
and  it  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  popularity  of  the 
play  on  the  stage,  or  by  the  suppression  of  the  deposing 
scene  in  the  printed  copy.  According  to  Mr.  Dixon,  "it 
was  a  singular  and  mendacious  tract,  which,  under  ancient 
names  and  dates,  gives  a  false  and  disloyal  account  of 
things  and  persons  in  his  own  age ;  the  childless  sovereign  ; 
the  association  of  defence  ;  the  heavy  burden  of  taxation  ; 
the  levy  of  double  subsidies ;  the  prosecution  of  an  Irish 
war,  ending  in  a  general  discontent ;  the  outbreak  of  blood  ; 
the  solemn  deposition  and  final  murder  of  the  prince." 
Bolingbroke  is  the  hero  of  the  tale,  and  the  existence  of  a 
title  to  the  throne  superior  to  that  of  the  Queen  is  openly 
affirmed  in  it.  A  second  edition  of  the  "  Richard  II."  had 
been  printed  in  1598,  under  the  name  of  Shakespeare,  but 
with  the  obnoxious  scene  still  omitted ;  and  it  is  not  until 
1608,  in  the  established  quiet  of  the  next  reign,  that  the 
omitted  scene  is  restored  in  print.  It  is  plain  that,  during 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  it  would  have  been  dangerous  to 
have  printed  it  in  full ;  nevertheless,  it  had  had  a  great  run 
on  the  stage  during  these  years. 

Now,  Camden  speaks  of  both  the  book  of  Hayward  and 
the  tragedy  of  Richard  II.  He  states  that,  on  the  first  in- 
formal inquiry,  held  at  the  Lord  Keeper's  house,  in  June 
1 600,  concerning  the  conduct  of  Essex,  besides  the  general 
charges  of  disobedience  and  contempt,  "  they  likewise 
charged  him  with  some  heads  and  articles  taken  out  of  a 
certain  book,  dedicated  to  him,  about  the  deposing  Richard 
II."  This  was  doubtless  Hayward's  book.  But  in  his  ac- 
count of  the  trial  of  Merrick  (commander  at  Essex's  house), 


THE  RICHARD  II.  245 

he  says,  he  was  indicted  also,  among  other  things,  "  for 
having  procured  the  out-dated  tragedy  of  Richard  II.  to  be 
publicly  acted,  at  his  own  charge,  for  the  entertainment  of 
the  conspirators,"  on  the  day  before  the  attack  on  the 
Queen's  palace.  "  This,"  he  continues,  "  the  lawyers  con- 
strued as  done  by  him,  with  a  design  to  intimate  that  they 
were  now  giving  the  representation  of  a  scene  upon  the 
stage,  which  was  the  next  day  to  be  acted  in  reality  upon 
the  person  of  the  Queen.  And  the  same  judgment  they 
passed  upon  a  book,  which  had  been  written  sometime  be- 
fore, by  one  Hayward,  a  man  of  sense  and  learning,  and 
dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  viz.:  That  'twas  penned 
on  purpose  as  a  copy  and  an  encouragement  for  deposing 
the  Queen."  He  further  informs  us  that  the  judges,  in 
their  opinion,  "  produced  likewise  several  instances  from 
the  Chronicles  of  England,  as  of  Edward  II.  and  Richard 
II.,  who,  being  once  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  their  sub- 
jects, were  soon  deposed  and  murdered."  And  when 
Southampton  asked  the  Attorney-General,  on  his  trial, 
what  he  supposed  they  intended  to  do  with  the  Queen 
when  they  should  have  seized  her,  Coke  replied :  "  The 
same  that  Henry  of  Lancaster  did  with  Richard  II.,  .... 
when  he  had  once  got  the  King  in  his  clutches,  he  robbed 
him  of  his  crown  and  life."  This  account  of  Camden  may 
be  considered  the  more  reliable  in  that,  as  we  know  from 
a  M  SS.  copy  of  his  Annals,  which  (according  to  Mr. 
Spedding)  still  remains  in  the  Cottonian  Library,  contain- 
ing additions  and  corrections  in  the  handwriting  of  Bacon, 
it  had  certainly  passed  under  his  critical  revision  before  it 
was  printed  in  1 627.  And  this  may  help  us  to  a  more  cer- 
tain understanding  of  the  allusions,  which  Bacon  himself 
makes  to  these  same  matters,  in  his  Apology  and  in  his  ac- 
count of  the  trial  of  Merrick ;  for,  while  in  the  latter  he 
expressly  names  the  tragedy  of  Richard  II.,  in  the  former, 
as  also  in  the  Apothegms,  the  book  of  Dr.  Hayward  only  is 
mentioned  by  name,  while  there  is,  at  the  same  time,  a 


216  THE  RICHARD  II. 

covert  (yet  very  palpable)  allusion  in  them  both  to  the 
tragedy  also,  and  to  his  personal  connection  with  it. 

The  lawyers  as  well  as  the  judges,  Bacon  himself  in- 
cluded, appear  to  have  made  a  great  handle  of  this  matter 
of  King  Richard  II.  and  the  tragedy  — 

"For  the  deposing  of  a  rightful  king."  —  Rich.  II.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Coke  says,  in  his  speech  on  the  trial  of  Blount,  "  The  story 
of  Richard  II.,  the  act  of  1  Henry  IV.,  calling  a  Parlia- 
ment, putting  the  king  in  Pomfret  Castle,  and  the  king's 
death  following,  are  dangerous  precedents,  and  too  fitting 
these  indictments  "  ;  and  again,  on  the  trial  of  Merrick,  he 
says,  "  The  story  of  Henry  IV.,  being  set  forth  in  a  play, 
there  being  set  forth  the  killing  of  the  king  upon  a  stage  ; 
the  Friday  before,  Sir  Gilly,  and  some  others  of  the  earl's 
train,  having  an  humour  to  see  a  play,  they  must  needs 
have  the  play  of  Henry  IV.  The  players  told  them  that 
was  stale  :  they  should  get  nothing  by  playing  of  that ;  but 
no  play  else  would  serve ;  and  Sir  Gilly  gives  forty  shil- 
lings to  Phillips  the  player  to  play  this,  besides  whatever 
he  could  get." x  The  grave  and  crabbed  Attorney- General, 
who  had  probably  never  visited  a  theatre  in  his  life,  is 
evidently  more  intent  upon  his  points  of  law  than  upon 
any  accuracy  of  names  and  detail  in  these  theatrical  mat- 
ters ;  but,  while  it  is  clear  from  the  whole  context,  that  the 
play  spoken  of  was  this  same  tragedy  of  Richard  II.,  being 
correctly  styled  in  other  places,  the  passage  shows  how  easily 
the  names  were  confounded.  Bacon  makes  no  such  mis- 
take ;  for,  in  his  speech,  it  is  called  "  the  play  of  deposing 
King  Richard  II."  2  And  he  further  proceeds  to  cite  the 
example  of  Richard  III.,  "  who  (though  he  were  king  in 
possession,  and  the  rightful  inheritors  but  infants)  would 
never  sleep  quiet  in  his  bed  till  they  were  made  away  ; 
much  less  is  it  to  be  expected  that  a  Catilinarian  knot  and 
combination  of  rebels   (who   have   made   an   insurrection 

l  Howell's  State  Trials,  1422-5;  1411-2.  2  Ibid. 


THE  RICHARD  II.  247 

without  so  much  as  the  fume  of  a  title)  would  ever  en- 
dure that  a  queen,  who  had  been  their  sovereign,  and 
had  reigned  so  many  years  in  such  renown  and  policy, 
should  continue  longer  alive  than  should  make  in  their  own 
turn."  Which  same  "  knot "  appears  again  in  the  play 
itself,  thus  :  — 

"  His  ancient  knot  of  dangerous  adversaries."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"  Grey.  A  knot  you  are  of  damned  bloodsuckers;  "  —  lb.  III.  Sc.  3. 

and  thus,  again  :  — 

"  Will  you  unknit 
This  churlish  knot  of  all-abhorred  war?  " 

1  Henry  IV.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Again,  he  continues,  "  This  construction  is  no  mystery  or 
quiddity  of  law :  the  crown  is  not  a  garland  or  mere  out- 
ward ornament,  but  consists  of  preeminence  and  power ; 
and  therefore  when  the  subject  will  take  upon  him  to  give 
law  to  the  king,  and  to  make  the  sovereign  and  command- 
ing power  become  subject  and  commanded,  such  subject 
layeth  hold  of  the  crown,  and  taketh  the  sword  out  of  the 
king's  hand  "  :  — 

"  K.  Rich.  Subjected  thus, 

How  can  you  say  to  me,  I  am  a  king?  " 

Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  Bish.    What  subject  can  give  sentence  on  his  king  ? 
And  who  sits  here  that  is  not  Richard's  subject? 
Thieves  are  not  judged,  but  they  are  by  to  hear, 
Although  apparent  guilt  be  seen  in  them. 
And  shall  the  figure  of  God's  majesty, 
His  captain,  steward,  deputy-elect, 
Anointed,  crowned,  planted  many  years, 
Be  judged  by  subject  and  inferior  breath, 
And  he  himself  not  present? 

I  speak  to  subjects,  and  a  subject  speaks, 
Stirr'd  up  by  God  thus  boldly  for  his  king." 

Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  King  Rich.    For  I  have  given  here  my  soul's  consent 
T'  undeck  the  pompous  body  of  a  king : 


248  THE  RICHARD   II. 

Make  glory  base,  and  sovereignty  a  slave, 
Proud  majesty  a  subject,  state  a  peasant." 

Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  K.  Rich.     Or  I  '11  be  buried  in  the  king's  highway, 
Some  way  of  common  trade,  where  subjects'  feet 
May  hourly  trample  on  their  sovereign's  head. 

North.     My  lord,  in  the  base  court  he  doth  attend 
To  speak  with  you :  may  it  please  you  to  come  down  ? 

King  Rich.     Down,  down,  I  come ;  like  glistering  Phaeton, 
Wanting  the  manage  of  unruly  jades. 
In  the  base  court  ?    Base  court,  where  kings  grow  base, 
To  come  at  traitors'  calls,  and  do  them  grace. 
In  the  base  court  ?    Come  down  ?    Down,  court !  down  King !  " 

Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Here,  we  have,  in  Bacon,  rightful  inheritors,  apparent 
theft,  and  garland  or  ornament ;  and  in  the  play,  rightful 
king,  apparent  guilt,  and  undeck  ;  an  identity  in  the  use  of 
words  particularly  to  be  noted,  as  well  as  the  thought, 
style,  and  manner. 

While  Essex  was  yet  in  the  custody  of  the  Lord  Keeper, 
or  under  arrest,  between  October  of  1599  and  the  summer 
of  1600,  and  before  his  treasonable  plot  had  come  to  a  head, 
or  to  a  decisive  and  clear  breach  with  the  Queen,  Bacon, 
who  had  warned  him  against  aspiring  to  a  military  great- 
ness, who  was  not  in  the  secret  of  his  scheme,  and  doubt- 
less believed  his  wayward  courses  were  due  to  errors  of 
judgment  rather  than  to  any  disloyalty  at  heart,  had  ex- 
hausted all  his  wit  and  invention,  and  at  last  the  patience 
of  the  Queen,  in  his  efforts  to  palliate  the  conduct  of 
Essex,  to  assure  her  of  his  loyalty,  and  to  obtain  for  him  a 
restoration  to  her  favor ;  until,  at  length,  about  the  month 
of  September  of  that  year  (1600),  "Essex,  drawing  now 
towards  the  catastrophe,"  says  Bacon,  "  or  last  part  of  that 
tragedy,  for  which  he  came  upon  the  stage  in  Ireland,  his 
treasons  grew  to  a  farther  ripeness,"  and  the  case  became 
desperate.  The  Queen,  remembering  the  "continual,  in- 
cessant, and  confident  speeches  and  courses  "  that  he  had 
held,  became  "  utterly  alienated "  from   him,  turned  her 


THE  RICHARD  II.  249 

back  upon  him,  and  would  scarcely  speak  to  him  for  three 
months  after,  nor  until  he  had  made  the  most  passionate 
appeal  to  her  justice  and  affection,  that  whereas  he  had  lost 
many  friends  on  account  of  his  opposition  to  Essex,  he  was 
now  to  lose  her  favor  on  account  of  his  friendship  and  zeal 
in  his  behalf,  and  to  find  himself  in  the  condition  of  what 
"  the  Frenchmen  call  enfans  perdus."  Whereupon  her 
Majesty  was  "  exceedingly  moved,"  and  willed  him  "  to  rest 
upon  this,  '  gratia  mea  sufficit,' "  and  "  a  number  of  other 
sensible  and  tender  words  and  demonstrations,  such  as 
more  could  not  be  " ;  but,  as  touching  Essex,  "  ne  verbum 
quidem"  not  a  word  more. 

Meantime,  this  play  of  Richard  II.  has  had  a  great  run 
upon  the  stage  ;  it  has  had  the  open  countenance  of  Essex 
and  his  crew,  who  have  been  constant  auditors  at  the  Globe 
and  Blackfriars ;  the  public  mind  has  caught  his  drift  and 
understood  the  application  that  was  being  made  of  it ;  and 
even  the  groundlings  have  not  failed  to  perceive  its  bearing 
upon  Essex's  disloyal  schemes.  Hayward's  book  also  comes 
in,  with  its  express  dedication  to  Essex,  its  still  clearer  drift, 
and  its  more  palpable  treason,  to  add  to  the  general  agita- 
tion and  "  put  in  the  people's  heads  boldness  and  faction," 
and  still  more  to  inflame  the  anger  and  excite  the  alarm  of 
the  Queen.  Hayward  was  seized  and  sent  straight  to  the 
Tower,  and  some  months  afterwards  (August  4th,  1601)1 
when  Lambard,  Keeper  of  the  Records,  waited  upon  her 
Majesty  at  the  palace,  she  exclaimed :  "  I  am  Richard, 
know  you  not  that ! "  And  referring  to  Essex,  she  con- 
tinued :  "  He  that  will  forget  God  will  also  forget  his  ben- 
efactors :  this  tragedy  was  played  forty  times  in  open  streets 
and  houses."2  Plainly,  this  was  the  play,  and  not  the 
book. 

Now,  it  was  late  in  the  year  1599,  and  as  Bacon  says, 
"  about  the  middle  of  Michaelmas  term,"  (that  is,  about  the 

1  Dixon's  Story  of  Lord  Bacon's  Life,  (London,  1862),  156. 

2  Knight's  Biography  of  Shakespeare,  411. 


250  THE  RICHARD  II. 

middle  of  November,)  while  Essex  was  under  arrest  at  the 
Lord-Keeper's  house,  he  himself  having  free  access  to  her 
Majesty,  not  only  as  courtier  but  as  counsel  in  her  legal 
business,  and  not  long  after  the  time  when  her  Majesty  had 
dined  at  his  lodge  at  Twickenham  Park,  when,  though  pro- 
fessing not  to  be  a  poet,  he  had  prepared  a  sonnet  "  directly 
tending  and  alluding  to  draw  on  her  Majesty's  reconcile- 
ment "  with  Essex,  that  he  had  the  interviews  of  which  he 
speaks  in  this  Apology  and  relates  the  anecdotes  which  fol- 
low. After  telling  this  story  of  the  Sonnet,  he  proceeds 
thus :  — 

"  But  I  could  never  prevail  with  her,  though  I  am  per- 
suaded she  saw  plainly  whereat  I  levelled  ;  and  she  plainly 
had  me  in  jealousy,  that  I  was  not  hers  entirely,  but  still 
had  inward  and  deep  respect  towards  my  lord,  more  than 
stood  at  that  time  with  her  will  and  pleasure.  About  the 
same  time,  T  remember  an  answer  of  mine  in  a  matter 
which  had  some  affinity  with  my  lord's  cause,  which,  though 
it  grew  from  me,  went  after  about  in  other's  names.  For 
her  Majesty  being  mightily  incensed  with  that  book  which 
was  dedicated  to  my  Lord  of  Essex,  being  a  story  of  the 
first  year  of  King  Henry  IV.,  thinking  it  a  seditious  prel- 
ude to  put  into  the  people's  head  boldness  and  faction, 
said,  she  had  an  opinion  that  there  was  treason  in  it,  and 
asked  me  if  I  could  not  find  any  places  in  it  which  might 
be  drawn  within  case  of  treason  :  whereto  I  answered  :  For 
treason,  surely  I  found  none  ;  but  for  felony,  very  many. 
And  when  her  Majesty  hastily  asked  me,  Wherein  ?  I  told 
her  the  author  had  committed  very  apparent  theft ;  for  he 
had  taken  most  of  the  sentences  of  Cornelius  Tacitus,  and 
translated  them  into  English,  and  put  them  into  his  text." 

In  this  Apology,  Bacon  is  vindicating  himself  from  unjust 
aspersions  touching  his  conduct  towards  Essex,  and  he  is 
giving  here  an  account  of  his  intercessions  with  the  Queen 
in  his  behalf;  and  this  anecdote,  as  well  as  that  which  fol- 
lows, is  lugged  in  by  way  of  showing  his  zeal  for  Essex,  and 


THE  RICHARD  II.  251 

they  are  for  the  most  part  digressions ;  and  having  related 
them,  he  returns  again  to  the  main  thread  of  his  subject 
After  distinctly  stating  that  the  Queen  plainly  had  himself 
in  jealousy,  that  he  was  not  entirely  hers,  but  still  had  more 
inward  and  deep  respect  towards  Essex  than  stood  with  her 
will  and  pleasure,  he  introduces  the  anecdote  as  consisting 
in  an  answer  of  his  in  a  matter  which  had  some  affinity 
with  Essex's  cause,  and  which,  though  it  grew  from  himself, 
went  after  about  in  others'  names.  He  then  turns  upon 
Dr.  Hayward's  book  as  the  thing  which  had  mightily  in- 
censed her  Majesty  ;  but  that  was  not  the  u  matter  "  which 
grew  from  him.  That  book  went  only  in  the  name  of  Hay- 
ward  himself;  his  name  was  signed  to  the  dedication  of  it; 
he  was  sent  to  the  Tower  for  it ;  he  confessed  himself  the 
author  of  it,  in  an  apologetical  letter ;  it  was  attributed  to 
no  one  else ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he  was 
the  author  of  it,  nor  that  the  fact  was  well  known  both  to 
Bacon  and  the  Queen.  Nor  is  it  to  be  imagined  that 
Bacon  himself  could  have  been  suspected  of  having  written 
such  a  book  at  that  time  or  any  other.  But  considering  the 
character  of  that  book,  its  near  affinity  with  the  tragedy  of 
Richard  II.  as  well  as  with  Essex's  cause,  and  the  per- 
sonal relations  of  Essex,  -Bacon,  and  the  Queen,  it  becomes 
highly  probable,  if  not  quite  certain,  that  in  thus  bringing 
up  this  matter  against  Bacon's  intercession,  with  the  sug- 
gestion that  there  was  treason  in  it,  she  either  knew,  or 
strongly  suspected,  that  Bacon  himself  was  the  author  of 
that  play,  and  meant  to  throw  it  up  at  him  in  this  manner. 
Bacon  sees  her  drift,  and  endeavors  to  parry  the  blow  with 
a  jest.  This  is  further  manifest  in  the  allusion  to  the  theft 
upon  Tacitus.  The  play,  as  we  have  seen,  was  as  notorious 
in  this  same  connection  as  Dr.  Hayward's  book  ;  but  being 
a  mere  historical  drama,  written  without  any  reference  to 
Essex's  treason,  though  perverted  to  his  uses,  it  could  not 
so  well  be  laid  hold  of.  The  play  did  grow  from  him,  and 
went  about  afterwards  in  others'  names :  Hayward's  book 


252  THE  RICHARD   n. 

never  went  in  any  other  name  but  his  own.  Bacon  himself 
also  tells  us,  in  this  same  tract,  that  u  in  the  heat  of  all  the 
ill  news  from  Ireland "  and  the  agitations  going  on,  while 
the  Council  were  in  session  concerning  Essex,  in  November, 
1599,  "  there  did  fly  about  in  London  streets  and  theatres 
divers  seditious  libels,  and  Paul's  and  ordinaries  were  full 
of  bold  and  factious  discourses,"  to  the  Earl's  disadvantage ; 
and  yet  the  Queen,  in  her  clemency,  only  "  thought  herself 
of  a  mean  to  right  her  own  honor,  and  yet  spare  the  Earl's 
ruin."  The  theatre  is  thus  distinctly  brought  in  for  a  share 
in  the  business. 

So  capital  a  joke  did  this  piece  of  wit  appear  to  Bacon, 
that  he  could  not  spare  to  record  it  among  his  Apothegms, 
thus : — 

"  58.  The  book  of  deposing  King  Richard  the  Second,  and  the  coming  in 
of  Henry  the  Fourth,  supposed  to  be  written  by  Dr.  Hayward,  who  was 
committed  to  the  Tower  for  it,  had  much  incensed  Queen  Elizabeth;  and 
she  asked  Mr.  Bacon,  being  of  her  learned  counsel,  Whether  there  was  any 
treason  contained  in  it?  Mr.  Bacon  intending  to  do  him  a  pleasure,  and  to 
take  off  the  Queen's  bitterness  with  a  merry  conceit,  answered, '  No  Madam, 
for  treason  I  cannot  deliver  an  opinion  that  there  is  any,  but  very  much 
felony-'  The  Queen  apprehending  it  gladly,  asked,  How  ?  and  Wherein  ? 
Mr.  Bacon  answered,  "  Because  he  had  stolen  many  of  his  sentences  and 
conceits  out  of  Cornelius  Tacitus." 

The  designation  here  given  to  the  book  comes  much 
nearer  to  a  correct  naming  of  the  play  than  it  does  to  the 
title  of  Dr.  Hayward's  pamphlet,  and  the  suggestion  that 
the  Doctor  was  committed  to  the  Tower  for  only  being  sup- 
posed to  be  the  author,  and  that  he,  in  his  answer,  intended 
to  do  the  Doctor  a  pleasure,  looks  very  much  like  an 
attempt  at  a  cover,  and  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  little  curious 
in  itself.  That  Dr.  Hayward  had  translated  out  of  Tacitus 
was,  of  course,  a  mere  pretence  ;  but  that  the  play  drew 
largely  upon  the  "  sentences  and  conceits  of  Cornelius 
Tacitus,"  will  be  shown  to  be  quite  certain. 

This  was  not  the  end  of  the  matter :  it  came  up  again 
upon  a  similar  occasion,  not  long  afterwards,  for  the  Apol- 
ogy proceeds  thus :  — 


THE  RICHARD  n.  253 

"  And  another  time,  when  the  Queen  could  not  be  persuaded  that  it  was 
his  writing  whose  name  was  to  it,  but  that  it  had  some  more  mischievous 
author ;  and  said  with  great  indignation,  That  she  would  have  him  racked 
to  produce  his  author:  I  replied;  'Nay,  Madam,  he  is  a  doctor;  never  rack 
his  person,  but  rack  his  style;  let  him  have  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  help 
of  books,  and  be  enjoined  to  continue  the  story  where  it  breaketh  off,  and  I 
will  undertake,  by  collating  the  styles,  to  judge  whether  he  were  the  author 
or  no." 

Now,  why  this  question  of  the  authorship  of  Dr.  Hay- 
ward's  book,  when  it  was  published  under  his  own  name, 
and  he  was  confessedly  and  notoriously  the  writer  of  it  ? 
But  of  the  author  of  this  tragedy,  though  printed  with  the 
name  of  William  Shakespeare  on  the  title-page,  there 
might  have  been  more  room  for  question  ;  and  the  racking 
of  his  person  to  produce  his  author  might  have  been  more 
suggestive  to  the  wit  of  "  Mr.  Bacon  "  than  he  was  willing 
more  openly  to  confess.  The  Queen  suspected  that  this 
matter  which  grew  from  him,  but  went  after  about  in  others' 
names,  here  supposed  to  be  Dr.  Hayward's  book  (it  not 
being  his  intention  to  state  more  expressly  what  that  "  mat- 
ter "  was),  had  some  more  mischievous  author  than  even  Dr. 
Hayward ;  and  who,  then,  was  it  ?  certainly,  not  Essex,  to 
whom  it  was  dedicated,  for  she  doubtless  knew  very  well 
that  he  had  employed  the  pen  of  Francis  Bacon  in  all 
lengthy  papers  which  he  had  had  occasion  to  write ;  and 
perhaps  she  thought,  or  intended  to  insinuate,  if  not  that  it 
came  from  the  same  source  as  the  play  itself,  at  least  that 
it  was  countenanced  by  a  patronage  equally  mischievous  as 
that  which  had  encouraged  the  play ;  and  this  threat,  that 
she  would  have  the  ostensible  writer  racked  to  produce 
the  real  author,  looks  very  much  like  a  home  thrust  at 
Bacon  himself.  Again,  he  averts  the  blow  with  a  jest ;  and 
a  very  curious  jest  it  was.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
play  had  been  printed  in  1598  under  the  name  of  "William 
Shakespeare,  and  that  the  story  of  it,  the  history  of  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  had  already  been  continued  in  the 
first  and  second  parts  of  the  "  Henry  IV."  (the  deposition 
of  Richard  and  the  usurpation  of  Henry  occurring  in  the 


254  THE  RICHARD   II. 

middle  of  the  play  of  Richard  II.)  and  in  the  "  Henry 
V.,"  which  last  must  have  been  then  (in  1599)  actually  in 
hand,  or  but  lately  finished  ;  for  the  following  lines  of  the 
fifth  chorus  would  seem  to  have  been  written  before  the 
return  of  Essex  from  Ireland,  in  September  of  that  year  :  — 

"  Chor.    As  by  a  lower  but  loving  likelihood, 
Were  now  the  General  of  our  gracious  Empress 
(As  in  good  time  he  may)  from  Ireland  coming, 
Bringing  rebellion  broached  on  his  sword, 
How  many  would  the  peaceful  city  quit 
To  welcome  him."  —  Act  V.  Chorus. 

And  the  dancer  in  the  epilogue  to  the  second  part  of  the 
"  Henry  IV."  is  made  to  say,  "  our  humble  author  will  con- 
tinue the  story,  with  Sir  John  in  it,  and  make  you  merry 
with  the  fair  Katherine  of  France  " ;  and  in  the  concluding 
chorus  of  the  "  Henry  V.,"  the  writer  addresses  himself  to 
the  audience  in  these  words  :  — 

"  Chw.     Thus  far,  with  rough  and  all  unable  pen, 
Our  bending  author  hath  pursued  the  story";  — 

that  is  to  say,  the  story  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  which 
began  with  the  "  Richard  II."  — 

"  Containing  the  deposing  of  a  king." 

In  like  manner,  the  Prince  Hal  of  the  "  Henry  IV."  is  pre- 
dicted in  the  "  Richard  II.,"  in  the  "  unthrifty  son "  of 
Bolingbroke,  thus :  — 

"  Bol.    Inquire  at  London,  'mongst  the  taverns  there, 
For  these,  they  say,  he  daily  doth  frequent, 
With  unrestrained  loose  companions; 
Even  such,  they  say,  as  stand  in  narrow  lanes, 
And  beat  our  watch,  and  rob  our  passengers; 
While  he,  young  wanton  and  effeminate  boy, 
Takes  on  the  point  of  honour,  to  support 
So  dissolute  a  crew."  — Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

But  in  these  subsequent  pieces,  instead  of  the  aspiring 
Henry  Bolingbroke  usurping  a  throne,  deposing  an  anointed 
king,  cherishing  rebellion,  putting  in  the  people's  head 
boldness  and  faction,  and  furnishing  a  dangerous  example, 


THE  RICHARD  II.  255 

"  too  fitting "  to  these  times,  of  a  tragedy  which  may  be 
transferred  from  the  stage  to  the  state,  we  have  now  the 
facetious  Sir  John  only  treasonably  corrupting  the  true 
prince ;  and  at  length  the  "  fat  knight "  and  his  author 
have  so  grown  into  favor  with  the  offended  Queen,  that,  as 
the  traditions  say,  she  had  herself  commanded  the  story  to 
be  continued  in  another  piece ;  which  was  done  in  this 
same  year  1599-1600,  in  the  "  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor." 
And  if  this  tradition  can  be  relied  on,  it  may  give  still 
further  point  to  the  wit  of  Bacon's  answer.  This  sugges- 
tion, that  the  reputed  author  should  be  required  to  continue 
the  story,  and  that  he  would  himself  undertake  to  judge, 
by  collating  the  styles,  whether  he  were  the  author  or  no, 
may  possibly  be  understood  to  apply  to  Dr.  Hay  ward's  his- 
tory ;  but  it  would  thereby  lose  the  best  part  of  the  wit : 
certainly  no  one  was  better  prepared  than  himself  to  judge, 
by  the  styles,  of  the  identity  of  the  authorship,  if  it  were 
the  play  which  he  had  in  his  mind.  And  upon  this  hint, 
we  also  may  undertake  to  judge,  by  collating  the  styles, 
whether  or  no  he  were  the  author  of  these  plays. 

Nor  was  this  all.  But  when  the  informal  inquiry  came 
on,  before  the  Lords  Commissioners,  in  the  summer  of  1 600, 
Bacon,  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen,  desired  to  be  spared  from 
taking  any  part  in  it  as  Queen's  Counsel,  out  of  consider- 
ation of  his  personal  obligations  to  his  former  patron  and 
friend.  But  the  Queen  would  listen  to  no  excuse,  and  his 
request  was  peremptorily  refused.  It  will  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  Queen's  object  in  this  inquiry  was,  to  vindicate  her 
own  course  and  the  honor  of  the  crown,  without  subjecting 
Essex  to  the  dangers  of  a  formal  trial  for  high  treason,  and 
that  her  intention  then  was  to  check  and  reprove  him,  but 
not  to  ruin  his  fortunes.  Bacon  made  up  his  mind  at  once 
to  meet  the  issue  thus  intentionally  forced  upon  him,  and 
he  resolved  to  show  to  her,  as  he  says,  that  he  "  knew  the 
degrees  of  duties " ;  that  he  could  discharge  the  highest 
duty  of  the  subject  to  the  sovereign,  against  all  obligations 


256  THE  RICHARD  II. 

of  private  friendship  towards  an  erring  friend  ;  wherein, 
says  Fuller,  very  justly,  "  he  was  not  the  worse  friend  for 
being  the  better  subject "  ; ]  and  that  if  he  must  renounce 
either,  it  should  be  Essex,  rather  than  the  Queen,  who  had 
been,  on  the  whole,  personally,  perhaps,  the  better  friend 
of  the  two  to  him  :  —  well  knowing,  doubtless,  that  conduct 
is  oftentimes  explained  equally  well  by  the  basest  as  by  the 
loftiest  motives,  and  that  the  latter  are  generally  the  most 
difficult  of  appreciation.  The  next  thing  he  heard  was.  that 
the  Lords,  in  making  distribution  of  the  parts,  had  assigned 
to  him,  "  by  the  conclusion  binding  upon  the  Queen's 
pleasure  directly,  nolens  volens,"  that  part  of  the  charges 
which  related  to  this  same  u  seditious  prelude  "  ;  at  which 
he  was  very  much  annoyed.  And  they  determined,  he  says, 
"  that  I  should  set  forth  some  undutiful  carriage  of  my  lord, 
in  giving  occasion  and  countenance  to  a  seditious  pamphlet, 
as  it  was  termed,  which  was  dedicated  unto  him,  which  was 
the  book  before-mentioned  of  King  Henry  IV.  Where- 
upon I  replied  to  that  allotment,  and  said  to  their  Lordships, 
that  it  was  an  old  matter,  and  had  no  manner  of  coherence 
with  the  rest  of  the  charge,  being  matters  of  Ireland,  and 
thereupon  that  I  having  been  wronged  by  bruits  before, 
this  would  expose  me  to  them  more  ;  and  it  would  be  said 
I  gave  in  evidence  mine  own  tales."  What  bruits  ?  What 
tales  ?  The  Lords,  evidently  relishing  the  joke,  insisted  that 
this  part  was  fittest  for  him,  as  "  all  the  rest  was  matter  of 
charge  and  accusation,"  but  this  only  "  matter  of  caveat 
and  admonition  : "  wherewith  he  was  but  "  little  satisfied," 
as  he  adds,  "  because  I  knew  well  a  man  were  better  to 
be  charged  with  some  faults,  than  admonished  of  some 
others."  Evidently,  here  was  an  admonition  which  he  did 
not  like,  and  it  is  plain  that  he  took  it  as  personal  to  him- 
self. Nevertheless  he  did  actually  swallow  this  pill ;  for 
we  learn  from  other  history  that  on  the  hearing  before  the 
Lords  Commissioners  "  the  second  part  of  Master  Bacon's 

l   Worthies  of  England,  II.  422. 


THE  RICHARD  IL  257 

accusation  was,  that  a  certain  dangerous  seditious  pamphlet 
was  of  late  put  forth  into  print  concerning  the  first  year  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  but  indeed  the  end  of 
Richard  the  Second,  and  that  my  lord  of  Essex,  who  thought 
fit  to  be  patron  of  that  book,  after  the  book  had  been  out  a 
week,  wrote  a  cold  formal  letter  to  my  lord  of  Canterbury 
to  call  it  in  again,  knowing  belike  that  forbidden  things  are 
most  sought  after."  * 

As  to  what  these  "  bruits "  were,  some  light  may  be 
gained  from  certain  letters  2  which  were  written  about  the 
month  of  December  1599.  Bacon  himself  informs  us  in 
the  Apology  that  he  had  several  times  dissuaded  the  Queen 
from  taking  proceedings  in  the  Star  Chamber  against 
Essex,  in  consequence  of  which  her  Majesty's  "  face  and 
manner "  had  not  been  "  so  clear  and  open "  to  him  as 
before,  and  when  he  happened  one  day  to  be  absent  from 
the  Star  Chamber,  there  was  "  a  deep  silence  "  from  her  to 
him ;  and,  it  seems,  he  addresses  a  letter  to  her,  in  which 
he  entreated  her  Majesty  "  not  to  impute  his  absence  to 
any  weakness  of  mind  or  unworthiness,"  and  complains  that 
all  the  world  was  against  him,  and  that  his  "  life  had  been 
threatened  and  his  name  libelled."  He  also  writes  letters 
to  Lord  Howard  and  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  in  which  he  defends 
himself  against  certain  false  aspersions  touching  his  con- 
duct towards  Essex,  and  says,  "  There  is  shaped  a  tale  in 
London's  forge,"  that  he  had  delivered  opinion  to  the  Queen 
that  Essex's  cause  came  within  case  of  praemunire  and  high 
treason ;  and  he  denounces  these  reports  as  "  libels  and 
lies,"  having  their  "  root  in  some  light-headed  envy  at  his 
accesses,"  and  suggests  that  "  these  courses  and  bruits  hurt 
Essex  more  than  all."  No  doubt  these  were  the  "  bruits," 
which  had  been  raised  against  him  before ;  but  there  is 
nowhere  allusion  to  any  tales,  of  which  it  could  be  said  he 
gave  in  evidence  his  own,  unless  it  were  this  same  "  matter." 

1  Morrison's  Itinerary,  Works  XVI.  (Mont.),  Note  4c.  Part  H. 

2  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  II.  160-3. 

17 


258  THE  RICHARD  II. 

And  so,  as  he  had  been  wronged  before  by  these  bruits, 
this  part,  now,  would  expose  him  still  more  to  "  libels  and 
lies  "  of  the  same  kind,  and  it  would  also  be  said  he  gave 
in  evidence  his  own  tales  ! 

Thus  we  see  how  Essex  had  been  compelled  to  disclaim 
this  dedication  ;  and  Bacon  was  now  made  to  swallow  his 
I ••/  part  in  that  business  (whatever  it  was)  by  an  express  con- 
clusion of  the  Queen's  pleasure.  His  first  objection  to  the 
allotment  is,  that  this  part  of  the  charge  was  an  "  old 
matter."  But  this  dedication  was  not  so  very  old  a  matter, 
not  older  than  the  matters  of  Ireland,  being  scarcely  a  year 
old  ;  but  the  play  was  somewhat  older,  and  he  might  very 
well  urge  that  this  tragedy  had  nothing  to  do  with  Essex's 
treason  in  Ireland,  which  was  of  later  date  than  the  play. 
There  had  been  bruits  to  his  prejudice  before,  and  this 
"  old  matter "  would  expose  him  to  them  still  more,  and  it 
would  be  said  he  gave  in  evidence  his  own  tales  !  As  to 
these  tales  and  this  "  matter "  which  grew  from  himself,  he 
still  preferred  to  go  about  in  others'  names.  According  to 
Mr.  Tobie  Matthew,  it  had  been  just  so  with  the  most  pro- 
digious wit  in  all  England,  whose  name  was  Francis  Bacon, 
though  known  by  another.  And  as  some  further  proof  that 
this  play  of  Richard  II.  made  an  equal  figure  with  Hay- 
ward's  book  in  all  these  troubles  and  in  the  public  mind, 
and  was  precisely  that  very  same  "  old  matter,"  and  none 
other,  we  may  take  Bacon's  own  construction  (wherein  the 
old  matter  becomes  the  old  play)  from  his  account  of  the 
trial  of  Merrick,  which  runs  thus :  — 

"The  afternoon  before  the  rebellion,  Merrick,  with  a 
great  number  of  others,  that  afterwards  were  all  in  the 
action,  had  procured  to  be  played  before  them  the  play  of 
deposing  King  Richard  the  Second  ;  neither  was  it  casual, 
but  a  play  bespoken  by  Merrick,  and  not  so  only,  but  when 
it  was  told  him  by  one  of  the  players,  that  the  play  was  old, 
and  they  should  have  loss  in  playing  it,  because  few  would 
come  to  see  it,  there  was  forty  shillings  extraordinary  given 


THE  RICHARD  II.  259 

to  play,  and  so,  thereupon,  played  it  was.  So  earnest  was 
he  to  satisfy  his  eyes  with  the  sight  of  that  tragedy,  which 
he  thought  soon  after  his  lordship  should  bring  from  the 
stage  to  the  state,  but  that  God  turned  it  upon  their  own 
heads."  1 

Again,  this  account  of  the  tragedy  of  Richard  II.  may 
throw  some  light  on  the  behaviour  of  the  Queen  towards 
Bacon  (and  Essex)  in  the  matter  of  his  promotion.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  name  of  Essex  had  been  used  publicly  in 
connection  with  the  schemes  of  the  Jesuits  as  early  as  1594. 
Bacon  was  avowedly  the  confidential  counsellor  and  a 
known  adherent  of  Essex  and  his  party.  Essex's  counten- 
ance of  this  play  and  of  Hayward's  book  had  been  viewed 
by  her  in  the  light  of  undutiful  carriage  toward  his  sov- 
ereign ;  and  when  an  opportunity  occurred,  it  was  made  a 
ground  of  formal  accusation  against  him.  The  unfortunate 
subsidy  speech  may  not  have  been  the  only  objection  to 
Bacon's  advancement.  He  had  never  actually  repented  of 
that  error,  but  rather  justified  his  course  ;  an  offence  which 
might  easily  be  pardoned  and  forgotten.  It  had  been  so 
far  overlooked  that  she  had  continued  to  employ  him  in  her 
legal  business,  though  without  a  regular  appointment  as 
Queen's  Counsel,  and  she  had  rewarded  his  services  with 
various  gifts  and  grants,  and  bestowed  upon  him  many 
marks  of  her  favor.  But  this  matter  of  a  persistent  ad- 
herence to  the  fortunes  of  Essex,  even  in  his  wayward 
courses,  while  these  machinations  were  abroad  using  his 
name  and  his  title  from  PMward  III.  in  a  way  that  tended  to 
her  dethronement,  being  an  affair  of  high  political  import 
as  well  as  personal  to  herself,  was  neither  to  be  counte- 
nanced nor  forgotten,  though  it  might  be  endured.  It  was 
plain  to  the  actors  themselves,  in  the  repeated  efforts  made 
for  his  advancement,  during  these  years,  that  some  secret 
and  inexplicable  quirk  had  got  possession  of  her  mind  :  she 
held  fast  to  the  Cecils  and  resisted  all  solicitations  in  his 
i  Declaration  of  the  Treason  of  Robert  Earl  of  Essex,  Works  (Philad.),  365. 


260  THE  RICHARD  II. 

behalf.  During  her  whole  reign,  her  mind  had  been  dis- 
turbed with  anxieties  about  her  title  to  the  throne.  The 
several  successive  conspiracies  of  Campion,  Throckmorton, 
and  Parry  and  Babington,  down  to  the  beheading  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  in  1587,  had  been  contrived  and  suppressed ; 
and  still,  in  1594,  Parsons  and  Inglefield  were  at  work. 
Essex,  though  a  kinsman  and  favorite,  was  a  great  noble 
and  the  leader  of  a  powerful  party,  which  it  was  not  safe  to 
allow  to  become  too  powerful.  Her  latest  days  were  dis- 
quieted by  doubts  of  her  own  ministers ;  and  it  need  not 
appear  surprising  that  she  was  unwilling  to  place  Essex's 
confidential  adviser  in  the  line  of  promotion  to  the  highest 
offices  in  the  State,  nor  that  an  apprehension  so  secret  and 
profound  should  not  appear  on  the  surface  of  things.  So, 
when  the  question  of  the  Solicitorship  came  up,  she  was 
in  no  haste  "  in  determining  of  the  place,"  as  we  learn  from 
the  Letters.  She  answered  Essex  that  "  Bacon  had  a  great 
wit  and  much  learning,  but  that  in  law  he  could  show  to 
the  uttermost  of  his  knowledge,  and  was  not  deep  "  ;  and 
that  had  to  be  taken  for  an  answer.  It  was  not  always  the 
jealousy  of  the  Cecils  that  stood  in  his  way  ;  both  Lord 
Burghley  and  Sir  Robert  Cecil  now  urged  his  suit.  It  was 
laid  to  Lord- Keeper  Puckering  ;  but  the  Queen  was  *  never 
peremptory  but  to  my  lord  of  Essex."  When  Essex  was 
"  passionate  "  for  him,  she  was  "  passionate  against  him  "  ; 
and  bid  Essex  "•  go  to  bed,  if  he  could  think  of  nothing 
else."  She  said  to  Essex,  "  she  showed  her  mislike  to  the 
suit "  as  well  as  he  "  his  affection  for  it " ;  and  that  "  if 
there  were  to  be  a  yielding,  it  was  fitter  to  be  "  of  his  side. 
Did  she  fear  that  he  would  put  in  the  people's  head  bold- 
ness and  faction,  with  his  seditious  preludes  ?  DM  she 
know  that  Essex  was  even  aspiring  to  her  crown,  or,  at 
least,  looking  to  be  her  successor  ? 

"And  you  that  do  abet  him  in  this  kind, 
Cherish  rebellion,  and  are  rebels  all." — Rich.  II.,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

So,  the  honorable  offender  in  the  "  Timon  "  had  been' known 


THE  RICHARD  H.  261 

—  "to  commit  outrages, 
And  cherish  factions;" 

as  Bacon  says  of  M.  Portius  Cato,  that  "  he  had  a  bitter 
tongue,  and  loved  to  cherish  factions." 

He  writes  to  his  brother  Anthony  :  "  This  is  Essex,  and 
she  is  more  angry  with  him  than  with  me.  .  .  .  My  conceit 
is,  that  I  am  the  least  part  of  my  own  matter ;  ...  for  I 
know  her  Majesty's  nature,  that  she  neither  careth  though 
the  whole  surname  of  Bacons  travelled,  nor  the  Cecils 
neither."  And  he  adds,  "  But  what  the  secret  of  it  is, 
ocuhis  aquilce  non  penetravit."  The  secret  of  it,  or  at  least 
one  rational  explanation  of  it,  and  that  not  beyond  the 
reach  of  an  eagle  eye,  would  seem  to  be  clearly  revealed 
in  course  of  the  progress  of  this  Essex  drama.  In  the  very 
next  act  of  it,  now  in  1599-1600,  Essex's  schemes  are 
brought  to  a  head  and  final  issue.  Bacon  is  forced  de- 
cisively and  once  for  all  to  choose  between  him  and  her : 
he  cannot  serve  two  masters.  In  the  next  act,  he  is  com- 
pelled to  prosecute  his  old  friend  and  patron,  no  excuse 
admitted,  on  that  particular  part  of  the  charge  which  related 
to  those  "  factious  and  seditious  preludes  which  had  been 
flying  about  the  streets  and  theatres  of  London,"  and  which 
had  a  near  affinity  with  Essex's  cause,  including  that  tragedy, 
which  had  been  "  played  forty  times  in  London  streets  and 
houses,"  —  that  very  "  matter  "  which  grew  from  him,  "  and 
went  after  about  in  others'  names."  And  in  the  last 
act,  her  Majesty's  learned  counsel  adduces  as  proof  of 
treason  against  Merrick,  late  "  Commander  over  Essex's 
House,"  that  he  had  specially  procured  the  play  of  Richard 
II.  to  be  enacted  before  Essex's  men,  thinking  his  lordship 
was  about  to  bring  that  tragedy  from  the  stage  to  the  state, 
even  at  the  risk  of  giving  in  evidence  his  own  tales ! 

After  this  significant  hint  from  Bacon  himself,  that  whole 
"  sentences  and  conceits  "  had  been  transferred  from  Tac- 
itus into  the  play,  it  should  be  expected,  if  this  interpreta- 
tion be  correct,  that  some  traces  of  them  would  be  found  in 


262  THE  RICHARD  II. 

it ;  and  herein  we  have  a  remarkable  confirmation  of  the 
truth  of  the  supposition.  Tacitus  was  a  favorite  author 
with  Bacon.  Much  of  the  brevity  and  neatness  of  the 
style  of  both  Bacon  and  the  plays  may  be  due,  in  some  de- 
gree, to  the  model  of  Tacitus.  "  Of  all  stories,"  says  he, 
"  I  think  Tacitus  simply  the  best."  And  in  the  speech  on 
the  King's  Messages  (1609),  he  alludes  to  Tacitus's  ac- 
count of  Nerva  and  Nero,  in  these  words :  — 

"  If  the  king's  sovereignty  receive  diminution,  or  any  de- 
gree of  contempt, we  shall  be  a  meteor,  or  '  cor. 

pus  imperfecta  mistum,'  which  kind  of  bodies  come  speedily 
to  confusion  and  dissolution.  And  herein  it  is  our  happi- 
ness, that  we  may  make  the  same  judgment  of  the  king, 
which  Tacitus  made  of  Nerva :  '  Divus  Nerva  res  olim  dis- 
sociabiles  miscuit,  imperium  et  libertatem^  Nerva  did  tem- 
per things  that  before  were  thought  incompatible,  or  insoci- 
able,  sovereignty  and  liberty."  And  again,  in  the  Advance- 
ment :  "  What  was  the  cause  of  Nero's  fall  or  overthrow  ? 
Apollonius  answered  again :  Nero  could  tune  the  harp 
well ;  but  in  government  he  always  either  wound  up  the 
pins  too  high,  and  strained  the  strings  too  far  ;  or  let  them 
down  too  low,  and  slackened  the  strings  too  much. 

["  Iago.     [Aside.']     0 !  you  are  well  tun'd  now ; 
But  I  '11  set  down  the  pegs  that  make  this  music." 

Oth.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1.] 

Here  we  see  the  difference  between  regular  and  able 
princes,  and  irregular  and  incapable,  Nerva  and  Nero.  The 
one  tempers  and  mingles  the  sovereignty  with  the  liberty 
of  the  subject  wisely  ;  and  the  other  doth  interchange  it, 
and  vary  it  unequally  and  absurdly."  In  Tacitus  we  find 
these  words :  "  Nerva  Ccesar  res  olim  dissociabiles  miseuerit, 
Principatum  ac  libertatem  "  ;  and  again :  "  Sed  imperaturus 
es  hominibus,  qui  nee  tolam  servitutem  pati  possunt,  nee  totam 
libertatem."  l  And  the  same  ideas  and  imagery  are  clearly 
discernible  in  the  following  passages  from  the  play :  — 

1  Tac.  Hist.  I.  16. 


THE  RICHARD  II.  263 

"  K.  Rich.    For  I  have  given  here  my  soul's  consent, 
T'  undeck  the  pompous  body  of  a  king; 
Make  glory  base,  and  sovereignty  a  slave, 
Proud  Majesty  a  subject,  state  a  peasant."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  Which  so  rous'd  up  with  boisterous  untun'd  drums." 

Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

"  North.    His  tongue  is  now  a  stringless  instrument." 

Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"  Norf.    And  now  my  tongue's  use  is  to  me  no  more, 
Than  an  unstringed  viol,  or  a  harp; 
Or  like  a  cunning  instrument  cas'd  up 
Or,  being  open,  put  into  his  hands 
That  knows  no  touch  to  tune  the  harmony."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

"  K.  Rich.    This  music  mads  me :  let  it  sound  no  more, 
For  though  it  have  holp  madmen  to  their  wits, 
In  me,  it  seems,  it  will  make  wise  men  mad." 

Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

Wherewith  the  following  sentences  from  Tacitus  concern- 
ing Nero  and  his  devotion  to  music  and  the  harp  (cithera), 
may  also  be  compared  :  — 

"  Vetus  illi  cum  erat,  curriculo  quadrigarum  insistere ;  nee  minus  foedum 
stadium,  cithera  ludicum  in  modum  canere,  cum  ccenaret;  quid  Regibus 
et  antiquis  Ducibus  factitatum  memorabat."  —  Tac.  Ann.  XIV.  14. 

"  Ingreditur  theatrum,  cum  cithera  legere  obtemperans."  —  lb.  XVI.  4. 

"  Postremo  ipse  scenam  incedit,  multa  cura  tentans  citheram."  —  lb. 
XIV.  15. 

"  Quia  est  Nero  cithera,  ita  Piso  tragico  ornatu,  canebat"  —  lb.  XV.  39. 

In  the  letter  of  "  Advice  to  the  Earl  of  Rutland  on  his 
Travels,"  written  for  Essex  in  1596,  the  same  year  with 
this  play,  there  are  some  expressions  which  may  remind 
the  reader  of  the  character  of  Richard,  and  also  of  certain 
lines  of  the  play  :  — 

"  But  if  there  be  not  in  nature  some  partner  to  this  active  strength,  it 
can  never  be  obtained  by  any  industry ;  for  the  virtues  which  are  proper 
unto  it  are  liberality  or  magnificence,  and  fortitude  or  magnanimity;  and 
some  are  by  nature  so  covetous  or  cowardly,  as  it  is  as  much  in  vain  to  seek 
to  enlarge  or  inflame  their  minds  as  to  go  about  to  plough  the  rocks. 

["  And  for  our  eyes  do  hate  the  dire  aspect 

Of  civil  wounds  plough'd  up  with  neighbor's  swords." 

Act  I.  Sc.  3.] 


264  THE  RICHARD  n. 

Clearness  of  judgment  makes  men  liberal,  for  it  teacheth  men  to  esteem 
of  the  goods  of  fortune  not  for  themselves,  for  so  they  are  but  jailors  to  them, 
but  for  their  use,  for  so  they  are  lords  over  them ;  and  it  makes  us  to  know 
that  it  is  beatius  dare,  quam  accipere,  the  one  being  a  badge  of  sovereignty, 

the  other  of  subjection The  observation  of  proportion  or  likeness 

between  one  person  or  one  thing  and  another  makes  nothing  without  ex- 
ample, nor  nothing  new:  and  although  exampla  iUustrant,  non  probant, 
examples  may  make  things  plain  that  are  proved,  but  prove  not  themselves ; 
yet,  when  circumstances  agree,  and  proportion  is  kept,  that  which  is  probable 
in  one  case  is  probable  in  a  thousand,  and  that  which  is  reason  once  is 
reason  ever":  — 

"  Why  should  we  in  the  compass  of  a  pale, 
Keep  law  and  form  and  due  proportion, 
Shewing,  as  in  a  model,  our  firm  estate?  " 

Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

The  judgment  of  Apollonius  (an  author  much  cited  by 
Bacon)  upon  the  cause  of  Nero's  fall,  "  that  he  could  tune 
the  harp  well,"  but,  in  government,  "  wound  up  the  pins 
too  high,"  or  "  let  them  down  too  low,"  that  is,  "  knew 
no  touch  to  tune  the  harmony,"  was  an  anecdote  that  had 
been  impressed  upon  Bacon's  mind  ;  and  this  imagery,  de- 
rived from  the  tuning  of  instruments,  and  from  the  harp, 
as  well  as  the  ideas,  must  have  gone  by  the  same  road  into 
the  play.  Bacon  could  not  have  derived  these  stories  from 
the  play,  and  there  is  not  the  remotest  probability  that 
Shakespeare  could  have  been  familiar,  at  once,  with  the 
writings  of  Tacitus  and  these  sayings  of  Apollonius ;  and 
it  is  certain  he  could  have  borrowed  nothing  for  this  play 
from  the  Speech,  or  from  the  Advancement.  And  the 
same  imagery  shows  itself  again  in  the  De  Augmentis,  thus  : 

"  This  variable  and  subtle  composition  and  structure  of  man's  body  has 
made  it  as  a  musical  instrument  of  much  and  exquisite  workmanship,  which 
is  easily  put  out  of  tune.  And  therefore  the  poets  did  well  to  conjoin  music 
and  medicine  in  Apollo ;  because  the  genius  of  both  these  arts  is  almost  the 
same ;  for  the  office  of  the  physician  is  but  to  know  how  to  stretch  and  tune 
the  harp  of  man's  body,  that  the  harmony  may  be  without  all  harshness  or 
discord."  * 

Again  he  writes : 

"  And  in  music,  I  ever  loved  easy  airs,  that  go  full  all  the  parts  together; 
and  not  these  strange  points  of  accord  and  discord." 

1  Spedding's  Tran.  of  the  De  Aug.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.,  25. 


THE  RICHARD  H.  265 

Compare,  again,  these  "  conceits  "  from  Tacitus  with  the 
lines  cited  from  the  play,  as  follows :  — 

"Prater  multipliccs  rerum  humanarum  casus,  coelo  terroque  prodigia 
et  fulminarum  monitus  et  futurarum  praesagia,  lseta,  tristia,  ambigua,  man- 
ifesta.1  ....  Prodigia,  ....  vis  fulgarum,  ....  sidus  cometes,  sanguine, 
....  vitulus  cm  caput  in  crure  esset.2  Vidisse  civium  moestos  vultus.8 
Nero,  ....  rumor  ipso  tempore,  flagrantis  urbis,  inesse  cuin  domesticam 
BOeaam  et  cecinisse  Trojanum  excidium.4  Finis  Neronis,  ....  evulgato 
Imperii  arcano,  posse  Principem  alibi,  quam  Romae  fieri."  6 

"  Capt.     'T  is  thought  the  King  is  dead :  we  will  not  stay. 
The  bay-trees  in  our  country  are  all  wither'd, 
And  meteors  fright  the  fixed  stars  of  heaven; 
The  pale-fac'd  moon  looks  bloody  on  the  Earth, 
And  lean-look'd  prophets  whisper  fearful  change: 
Rich  men  look  sad,  and  ruffians  dance  and  leap : 

These  signs  forerun  the  death  or  fall  of  Kings. 

Sal.    Ah,  Richard,  with  the  eyes  of  heavy  mind, 
I  see  thy  glory,  like  a  shooting  star, 
Fall  to  the  base  earth  from  the  firmament."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

The  identity  of  the  ideas  and  imagery  here  is  so  clear 
and  palpable  as  to  need  no  comment.  Some  trace  may 
also  be  observed  in  these  lines  of  the  author's  reading  of 
Holinshed's  history  of  Richard  II.,  in  which  it  is  related 
that  "  in  this  year  (1399),  in  a  manner  throughout  all  the 
realme  of  England,  old  baie-trees  withered,  and  afterwards, 
contrarie  to  all  men's  thinking,  grew  greene  againe,  a 
strange  sight,  and  supposed  to  impart  some  unknown 
event " ; 6  but  Holinshed  makes  no  mention  of  meteors, 
the  fixed  stars  of  heaven,  the  pale-faced  moon,  prophets 
whispering  fearful  change,  rich  men  looking  sad,  the  un- 
strung viol  and  the  harp,  nor  ruffians  dancing  and  leaping : 
these  come  from  Tacitus. 

So,  also,  Bacon  says  in  the  Essay  of  Seditions  and 
Troubles :  — 

"When  discords,  and  quarrels,  and  factions,  are  carried  openly  and 
audaciously,  it  is  a  sign  the  reverence  of  government  is  lost;  for  the 

l   Tac.  Hist.  I.  3.        2  Tac.  Ann.  XII.  47.        «  lb.  XV.  36. 

*  lb.  XV.  39.  «  Tac.  Hist.  I.  4.  «  Chron.  of  Eng.  n.  850. 


266  THE  RICHARD  II. 

motions  of  the  greatest  persons  in  a  government  ought  to  be  as  the  mo- 
tions of  the  planets  under  pi-imum  mobile  (according  to  the  old  opinion), 
which  is  that  every  of  them  is  carried  swiftly  by  the  highest  motion,  and 
softly  in  their  own  motion;  and  therefore,  when  great  ones  in  their  own 
particular  motion  move  violently,  and,  as  Tacitus  expresseth  it  well, '  libe- 
rius  quam  ut  imperantium  meminissent,''  it  is  a  sign  the  orbs  are  out  of 
frame." 

"  K.  Henry.  Will  you  again  unknit 

This  churlish  knot  of  all  abhorred  war, 
And  move  in  that  obedient  orb  again, 
Where  you  did  give  a  fair  and  natural  light, 
And  be  no  more  an  exhal'd  meteor, 
A  prodigy  of  fear,  and  a  portent 
Of  broached  mischief  to  the  unborn  times?  " 

lffen.  IV.,  Act  V.  Sc.l. 

It  will  be  borne  in  mind  tbat  this  Essay  first  appeared  in 
the  edition  of  1625,  and  of  course  William  Shakespeare 
could  never  have  borrowed  anything  from  it  for  these  plays, 
otherwise  than  as  they  came  through  the  mind  of  Bacon 
himself.  This  Essay,  like  many  others  of  them,  is  full  of 
quotations  from  Tacitus,  and  the  ideas,  imagery,  and  very 
language  of  the  Essay  may  be  distinctly  recognized  by  a 
careful  reader  throughout  the  play.  When  the  sentences 
and  conceits  are  wrenched  from  their  contexts,  the  resem- 
blances are  less  striking ;  but  a  few  instances  will  be  suf- 
ficient to  show  that  there  is  ample  ground  for  this  asser- 
tion :  — 

"  Libels  and  licentious  discourses  against  the  State,  when  they  are  frequent 
and  open;  and  in  the  like  sort  false  news  often  running  up  and  down,  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  State,  and  hastily  embraced,  are  among  the  signs  of 
troubles." 

"Act  in.  Sc.  4.  —  Duke  of  York's  Garden. 

"  Queen.  But  stay,  here  come  the  gardeners : 

Let 's  step  into  the  shadow  of  these  trees.  — 
My  wretchedness  unto  a  row  of  pins, 
They'll  talk  of  State;  for  every  one  doth  so 
Against  a  change.     Woe  is  forerun  with  woe." 

"  Shepherds  of  people  had  need  to  know  the  calendars  and  tempests  in 
State,  which  are  commonly  greatest  when  things  grow  to  equality :  "  — 

uGard.    Go  thou,  and  like  an  executioner, 
Cut  off  the  heads  of  too-fast-growing  sprays, 


THE  RICHARD  II.  267 

That  look  too  lofty  in  our  commonwealth : 
All  must  be  even  in  our  government.  — 

1  Sent.    Why  should  we,  in  the  compass  of  a  pale, 
Keep  law  and  form  and  due  proportion, 
Shewing,  as  in  a  model,  our  firm  estate, 
When  our  sea-wall'd  garden,  the  whole  land, 
Is  full  of  weeds '/  " 

The  talk  of  the  gardeners  then  goes  on  about  Richard's 
"  disordered  spring  "  and  those  "  weeds,"  the  Earl  of  Wilt- 
shire, Bushy,  Green,  that  he  had  suffered  to  grow  up  in  his 
untrimmed  garden,  and  Bolingbroke,  who  had  "  seized  the 
wasteful  king,"  ending  thus :  — 

"  1  Servt.    What !  think  you  then,  the  King  shall  be  depos'd? 

Gard.    Depress'd  he  is  already;  and  depos'd, 
'T  is  doubt,  he  will  be." 

"  For  high  conceits  do  come  streaming  into  the  imaginations  of  base  per- 
sons ;  especially  when  they  are  drunk  with  news  and  talk  of  the  people." 

History  of  Henry  VI L 

"  Queen.    0, 1  am  press'd  to  death,  through  want  of  speaking ! 

[  Coming  forward. 
Thou,  old  Adam's  likeness,  set  to  dress  this  garden, 
How  dares  thy  harsh,  rude  tongue  sound  this  unpleasing  news  ? 
What  Eve,  what  serpent  hath  suggested  thee 
To  make  a  second  fall  of  cursed  man  ? 
Why  do'st  thou  say  King  Richard  is  depos'd  ? 
Dar'st  thou,  thou  little  better  thing  than  earth, 
Divine  his  downfall  ?     Say,  where,  when,  and  how, 
Cam'st  thou  by  these  ill-tidings  ?    Speak,  thou  wretch." 

"Also,  as  Machiavel  noteth,  when  princes  that  ought  to  be  common 
parents,  make  themselves  as  a  party,  and  lean  to  one  side,  it  is  as  a  boat 
that  is  overthrown  by  uneven  weight  on  the  one  side." 

"Gard.    Pardon  me,  madam:  little  joy  have  I, 
To  breathe  these  news,  yet  what  I  say  is  true. 
King  Richard,  he  is  in  the  mighty  hold 
Of  Bolingbroke:  their  fortunes  both  are  weigh'd: 
In  your  lord's  scale  is  nothing  but  himself. 
And  some  few  vanities  that  make  him  light; 
But  in  the  balance  of  great  Bolingbroke, 
Besides  himself,  are  all  the  English  peers, 
And  with  that  odds  he  weighs  King  Richard  down." 

"  So  when  any  of  the  four  pillars  of  government  are  mainly  shaken,  or 


268  THE  RICHARD  II. 

weakened,  (which  are  religion,  justice,  counsel,  and  treasure,)  men  had  need 
to  pray  for  fair  weather :  "  — 

"K.  Rich.  Away, 

From  Richard's  night  to  Bolingbroke's  fair  da}'."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  We  '11  make  foul  weather  with  despised  tears."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"  The  causes  and  motions  of  seditions  are  innovation  in  religion,  taxes, 
alterations  of  laws  and  customs,  breaking  of  privileges,  general  oppression, 
advancement  of  unworthy  persons,  factions  grown  desperate:  "  — 

"North.    Now,  afore  God,  't  is  shame  such  wrongs  are  borne 
In  him,  a  royal  prince,  and  many  more 
Of  noble  blood  in  this  declining  land. 
The  King  is  not  himself,  but  basely  led 

By  flatterers 

Ross.     The  Commons  hath  he  fill'd  with  grievous  taxes, 
And  lost  their  hearts:  the  nobles  hath  he  fin'd 
For  ancient  quarrels,  and  quite  lost  their  hearts. 

Wil.    And  daily  new  exactions  are  devis'd; 
As  blanks,  benevolences,  and  I  wot  not  what. 


Ross.     The  Earl  of  Wiltshire  hath  the  realm  in  farm. 

Wil.    The  King's  grown  bankrupt,  like  a  broken  man. 

North.     Reproach  and  dissolution  hangeth  over  him. 

Ross.    He  hath  not  money  for  these  Irish  wars, 
His  burthenous  taxations  notwithstanding, 
But  by  the  robbing  of  the  banish'd  Duke." — Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"Bol.    I  see  old  Gaunt  alive :  O,  then,  my  father, 
Will  you  permit  that  I  shall  stand  condemn'd 
A  wand'ring  vagabond,  my  rights  and  royalties 
Pluck'd  from  my  arms  perforce,  and  given  away 

To  upstart  unthrifts  ? 

My  father's  goods  are  all  distrain'd  and  sold; 
And  these,  and  all,  are  all  amiss  employ'd. 
What  would  you  have  me  do?    I  am  a  subject, 
And  challenge  law :  attornies  are  denied  me, 
And  therefore  personally  I  lay  claim 
To  my  inheritance  of  free  descent. 


Wil.    Base  men  by  his  endowments  are  made  great." 

Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

"Bol.    If  not,  I  '11  use  the  advantage  of  my  power, 
And  lay  the  summer's  dust  with  showers  of  blood, 
Rain'd  from  the  wounds  of  slaughter'd  Englishmen: 
The  which,  how  far  off  from  the  mind  of  Bolingbroke 
It  is,  such  crimson  tempest  should  bedrench 
The  fresh  green  lap  of  fair  King  Richard's  land, 
My  stooping  duty  tenderly  shall  show." — Act  HI.  Sc.  3. 


THE  RICHARD  II.  269 

"And  as  there  are  -certain  hollow  blasts  of  wind  and  secret  swelling  of 
seas  before  a  tempest,  so  are  there  in  states: "  — 

"  This  lowering  tempest  of  your  home-bred  hate."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

"Aum.  How  brooks  your  grace  the  air, 

After  late  tossing  on  the  breaking  seas?  "  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  For  it  is  true  that  every  vapour,  or  fume,  doth  not  turn  into  a  storm,  so 
it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  storms,  though  they  blow  over  divers  times, 
may  come  at  last : "  — 

"Scrocp.    Like  an  unseasonable  stormy  day, 
Which  makes  the  silver  rivers  drown  their  shores, 
As  if  the  world  were  all  dissolv'd  to  tears, 
So  high  above  his  limits  swells  the  rage 
Of  Bolingbroke,  — "        .        .        .        Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"Sal.    Thy  sun  sets  weeping  in  the  lowly  west, 
Witnessing  storms  to  come,  woe  and  unrest. " — Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

"North.    But  lords,  we  hear  this  fearful  tempest  sing, 
Yet  seek  no  shelter  to  avoid  the  storm."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 
"  Hie  etiam  caecos  instare  tumultus 
Saepe  monet,  fraudesque  operta  tumescere  bella." —  Essay  xv. 

"  Were  it,  that  before  such  great  things,  men's  hearts  of  a  secret  instinct 
of  nature  misgive  them;  as  the  sea  without  wind  swelleth  of  himself  before 
a  tempest"  —  Holinshed's  History  of  Richard  III.,  Vol.  III.,  379. 

"  3  Cit.     Before  the  days  of  change,  still  is  it  so. 
By  a  divine  instinct  men's  minds  mistrust 
Ensuing  danger;  as  by  proof  we  see 
The  water  swell  before  a  boist'rous  storm." 

Richard  III.,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

"  For  when  the  authority  of  princes  is  made  but  an  accessary  to  a  cause, 
and  that  there  be  other  bands  that  tie  faster  than  the  band  of  sovereignty, 
kings  begin  to  be  put  almost  out  of  possession : "  — 

"  Queen.     I  will  despair,  and  be  at  enmity 
With  cozening  hope :  he  is  a  flatterer, 
A  parasite,  a  keeper-back  of  death, 
Who  gently  would  dissolve  the  bands  of  life, 
While  false  hope  lingers  in  extremity."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

"Fits.  — there  is  my  bond  of  faith 

To  tie  thee  to  my  strong  correction."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"Certainly,  the  politic  and  artificial  nourishing  and  entertainment  of 
hopes,  and  carrying  men  from  hopes  to  hopes,  is  one  of  the  best  antidotes 
against  the  poison  of  discontents ;  and  it  is  a  certain  sign  of  a  wise  govern- 
ment and  proceeding,  when  it  can  hold  men's  hearts  by  hopes,  when  it 
cannot  by  satisfaction ;  and  when  it  can  handle  things  in  such  manner  as  no 
evil  shall  appear  so  peremptory  but  that  it  hath  some  outlet  of  hope : "  — 


270  THE  RICHARD  II. 

"JT.  Rick.  What  comfort  have  we  now  ? 

By  Heaven,  I  '11  hate  him  everlastingly 
That  bids  me  be  of  comfort  any  more. 
Go  to  Flint  Castle ;  there  I  '11  pine  away ; 
A  king,  woe's  slave,  shall  kingly  woe  obey. 
That  power  I  have,  discharge ;  and  let  'em  go 
To  ear  the  land  that  hath  some  hope  to  grow, 
For  I  have  none."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  To  give  moderate  liberty  for  griefs  and  discontentments  to  evaporate 
(so  it  be  without  too  great  insolency  or  bravery),  is  a  safe  way.  For  he 
that  turneth  the  humors  back,  and  maketh  the  wound  bleed  inwards 
endangereth  malign  ulcers  and  pernicious  iinposthumations :  "  — 

"K.  Rich.    For  that  our  kingdom's  earth  should  not  be  soil'd 
With  that  dear  blood  which  it  hath  foster'd, 
And  for  our  eyes  do  hate  the  dire  aspect 

Of  civil  wounds  plough' d  up  with  neighbour's  swords: "  —  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 
"Aum.    You  holy  clergymen,  is  there  no  plot 
To  rid  the  realm  of  this  pernicious  blot?  " —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

"  Gaunt.    And  let  thy  blows,  doubly  redoubled, 
Fall  like  amazing  thunder  on  the  casque 
Of  thy  amaz'd  pernicious  enemy."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

"  This  is  the  imposthume  of  much  wealth  and  peace, 
That  inward  breaks,  and  shews  no  cause  without 
Why  the  man  dies."  —  Hamlet,  Act  IV.  Sc.  4. 
"  I  understand  a  fit  head  to  be  one  that  hath  greatness  and  reputation : "  — 
"Gaunt.     Thy  death-bed  is  no  lesser  than  the  land, 
Wherein  thou  liest  in  reputation  sick."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"Nor.     The  purest  treasure  mortal  times  afford 
Is  spotless  reputation."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 
"For  I  see  sometimes  the  profounder  sort  of  wits,  in  handling  some  par- 
ticular argument,  will  now  and  then  draw  a  bucket  of  water  out  of  this  well 
for  their  present  use ;  but  the  spring-head  thereof  seemeth  to  me  not  to  have 
been  visited."  — Adv.  of  Learning,  II. 

aBol.    That  all  the  treasons  for  these  eighteen  years 
Complotted  and  contrived  in  this  land, 
Fetch'd  from  false  Mowbray  their  first  head  and  spring." 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 
"K.  Rich.    Now  is  this  golden  crown  like  a  deep  well, 
That  owes  two  buckets,  filling  one  another; 
The  emptier  ever  dancing  in  the  air, 
The  other  down,  unseen,  and  full  of  water: 
That  bucket  down,  and  full  of  tears,  am  I, 
Drinking  my  grief,  whilst  you  mount  up  on  high." 

Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 


THE  RICHARD  II.  271 

"  Surely  princes  had  need  in  tender  matters  and  ticklish  times  to  heware 
what  they  say,  especially  in  these  short  speeches,  which  fly  abroad  like 
darts,  and  are  thought  to  be  shot  out  of  their  secret  intentions: "  — 

"K.  Rich.    And  darts  his  light  through  every  guilty  hole." 

Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  York.    While  all  tongues  cried,  — '  God  save  thee,  Bolingbroke ! ' 
You  would  have  thought  the  very  windows  spake, 
So  many  greedy  looks  of  young  and  old 
Through  casements  darted  their  desiring  eyes 
Upon  his  visage."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  Such  men  in  other  men's  calamities,  are,  as  it  were,  in  season,  and  ever 
on  the  loading  part ;  not  so  good  as  the  dogs  that  licked  Lazarus'  sores,  but 
like  flies  that  are  still  buzzing  upon  everything  that  is  raw."  —  Essay,  xiii. 

"K.  Rich.    0,  villains,  vipers,  damn'd  without  redemption ! 
Dogs,  easily  won  to  fawn  on  any  man !  "  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

These  passages  may  be  left  to  speak  for  themselves.  It 
is  also  worthy  of  notice  that  the  word  instrument  is  much 
used  by  both  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  in  a  metaphorical 
way,  and  peculiarly  in  the  Latin  sense  of  Tacitus ;  as  for 

instance,  we  have,  in  Tacitus,  "  mathematicos, pessi- 

mam  Principalis  matrimonii  instrumentum"  and  "  id  haberet 
instrumenta  servitutis  et  Reges"  and  "sed  sola  instrumenta 
vitiorum  "  ;  and  in  the  plays,  "  the  instruments  of  darkness," 
"  the  mortal  instruments,"  "  a  serving  man  and  instrument," 
and  "  that  hath  to  instrument  this  lower  world " ;  and,  in 
Bacon,  "  the  wicked  instruments  only  of  other  men's  malice," 
and  "  the  actors  and  instruments,"  "  the  organs  and  instru- 
ments," "  the  fittest  instrument  to  do  good  to  the  state,"  and 
"  practised  by  subtile  instruments  to  draw  them  on,"  and 
"  but  as  a  divine  instrument,  though  a  mortal  man."  And 
the  favorite  metaphor  of  both  Bacon  and  the  plays,  derived 
from  instruments  of  music  and  the  tuning  of  instruments, 
appears  in  the  Advancement,  thus  :  — 

"  Being  at  some  pause  looking  back  into  that  I  have  passed  through,  this 
writing  seemeth  to  me,  '  si  numquam  fallit  imago,'  as  far  as  a  man  can 
judge  of  his  own  work,  not  much  better  than  the  noise,  or  sound,  which 
musicians  make,  while  they  are  tuning  their  instruments,  which  is  nothing 
pleasant  to  hear,  but  yet  is  a  cause  why  the  music  is  sweeter  afterwards :  so 
have  I  been  content  to  tune  the  instruments  of  the  muses,  that  they  may 
play  that  have  better  hands: "  — 


272  THE  RICHARD  II. 

"  His  tongue  is  now  a  stringless  instrument."  —  Rich.  II. 

It  is  true,  the  author  of  this  play,  in  the  historical  part, 
very  closely  followed  the  history  of  Holinshed  ;  as  for  one 
instance,  in  Holinshed,  the  Earl  of  Arundel,  turning  to 
Sir  John  Bushie,  says,  "  not  the  King's  faithful  commons 
require  this,  but  thou,  and  what  thou  art  I  know  " ;  and  in 
the  "  Richard  II.,"  it  appears  thus  :  — 

"N&rf.    No  Bolingbroke :  if  ever  I  were  traitor, 
My  name  be  blotted  from  the  Book  of  Life, 
And  I  from  Heaven  banish'd,  as  from  hence! 
But  what  thou  art,  God,  thou,  and  I  do  know."  — Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

So  Holinshed  speaks  of  Richard  lamenting  his  miserable 
state,  "  when  now  it  was  too  late : "  — 

"  One  day  too  late,  I  fear,  my  noble  lord, 
Hath  clouded  all  thy  happy  days  on  Earth."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

But  the  parallel  ideas,  expressions,  and  allusions  in  these 
writings  of  Bacon,  as  well  as  that  particular  allusion  to  the 
Salic  law,  in  the  Apothegms,  in  reference  to  which  the 
speech  in  the  "  Henry  V."  is  almost  literally  versified  out 
of  Holinshed,  with  a  like  allusion  to  the  book  of  Num- 
bers and  to  the  French  gloss  as  in  the  Apothegms,  not 
to  mention  many  other  similar  instances,  would  seem  to 
furnish  pretty  satisfactory  evidence  that  Holinshed  was 
transferred  to  the  play,  through  the  mind  of  Francis  Bacon 
and  not  of  William  Shakespeare.  Indeed,  the  critical 
reader,  who  shall  diligently  compare  the  entire  play  with 
the  writings  of  Bacon  and  Tacitus,  can  scarcely  fail  to  dis- 
cover translations  and  similitudes  enough,  not  only  to  justify 
the  expectation  of  traces  in  it  of  the  "  sentences  and  con- 
ceits of  Cornelius  Tacitus,"  but  to  convince  him  of  the  fact, 
that  they  passed  into  the  play  through  the  limbec  of  Bacon's 
brain  ;  thus  confirming  the  otherwise  very  conclusive  proof 
of  its  identity  with  that  matter  which  grew  from  him,  and 
went  after  about  in  other's  names. 


THE  HENRY  VIII.  273 

§  2.    THE    HENRY   VTII. 

The  tragedy  of  Henry  VIII.  has  been  supposed  by  some 
critics  to  have  been  written  as  early  as  the  year  1602, 
but  there  is  no  evidence  concerning  it,  nor  any  certain 
trace  of  its  existence,  before  it  was  produced  in  great 
splendor  at  the  Globe  Theatre,  on  the  30th  of  June,  1613, 
when  the  theatre  took  fire,  during  the  performance,  and 
was  burned  down.  Ben  Jonson  appears  to  have  taken  an 
active  part  in  bringing  out  the  play  ;  and  some  have  enter- 
tained the  opinion,  on  internal  evidence  merely,  that  the 
prologue  and  the  lines  in  compliment  to  King  James  were 
written  by  him  and  added  to  the  old  play,  at  this  time. 
But  there  is  no  good  ground  for  this  supposition :  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  far  more  probable  that  the  play  was  entirely 
a  new  one,  as  Mr.  White  believes,  and  that  the  speech  of 
Cranmer  in  praise  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  as  well  as  the 
scenes  in  which  Anne  Bullen,  the  mother  of  Elizabeth,  is 
introduced  in  terms  of  high  commendation,  was  intended 
to  be  a  special  compliment  to  the  King.  It  was  never 
entered,  nor  printed,  until  it  appeared  in  the  Folio  of  1623. 
It  is  true,  however,  that,  in  the  year  1602,  the  kingdom  was 
agitated  on  the  subject  of  abuses  of  the  King's  prerogative 
in  the  matter  of  taxes,  and  that  there  were  loud  complaints 
of  oppressive  exactions.  The  subject  was  debated  in  Par- 
liament, and  a  petition  of  grievances  was  sent  .up  to  the 
King  by  the  Commons.  Bacon  presented  it,  and  made  his 
speech  to  the  King  touching  purveyors  ;  in  which  allusion 
is  made  to  the  fact,  that  similar  grievances  had  existed  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  who  had  made  "  some  laws  or 
law  against  this  kind  of  offenders."  And  in  this  play,  the 
author  makes  Queen  Katherine  present  to  King  Henry  a 
like  petition  of  grievances.  A  comparison  of  this  speech 
with  the  second  scene  of  the  first  act  will  scarcely  leave 
room  for  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the  critical  reader,  that 
both  proceeded  from  the  same  pen.  Observe  these  pas- 
sages, in  particular :  — 
18 


274  THE   HENRY  VIII. 

"  Wherein  it  may  please  your  majesty  to  vouchsafe  me  leave,  first,  to  set 
forth  unto  you  the  dutiful  and  respective  carriage  of  our  proceeding ;  next 
the  substance  of  our  petition  "  :  — 

"  Q.  Kath.  Thank  your  majesty. 

That  you  would  love  yourself,  and  in  that  love 
Not  unconsidered  leave  your  honour,  nor 
The  dignity  of  your  office,  is  the  point 
Of  my  petition. 

K.  Hen.  Lady  mine,  proceed." 

"For  there  is  no  grievance  so  sensible,  and  so  bitter  unto  the  common 

subject,  as  this  whereof  we  now  speak The  commissions  they  bring 

down  are  against  the  law,  and  because  they  know  so  much  they  will  not 

show  them For  all  these  grievances  are  committed  in  your  majesty's 

name." 

"  Q.  Kath.    I  am  solicited  not  by  a  few, 

And  those  of  true  condition,  that  your  subjects 

Are  in  great  grievance.     There  have  been  commissions 

Sent  down  among  'em,  which  have  flaw'd  the  heart 

Of  all  their  loyalties :  wherein,  although, 

My  good  Lord  Cardinal,  they  vent  reproaches 

Most  bitterly  on  you,  as  putter-on 

Of  these  exactions,  yet  the  King  our  master, 

Whose  honour  Heaven  shield  from  soil,  even  he  escapes  not 

Language  unmannerly ;  yea,  such  which  breaks 

The  sides  of  loyalty,  and  almost  appears 

In  loud  rebellion." 

"  For  instead  of  takers  they  become  taxers.  ,  ...  I  do  set  apart  these 

commodities,  wool,  wool-fels,  and  leather, because  the  custom  upon 

them  is  antiqua  costuma:" — ["their  spinners,  carders,  fullers,  weavers." 

Holin.  III.  709]. 
"  Norf.  Not  almost  appears ; 

It  doth  appear ;  for  upon  these  taxations, 
The  clothiers  all,  not  able  to  maintain 
The  many  to  them  'longing,  have  put  off 
The  spinsters,  carders,  fullers,  weavers,  who,"  — 


K.  Hen.  Taxation ! 

Wherein  ?  and  what  taxation  ?    My  Lord  Cardinal, 
You  that  are  blamed  for  it  alike  with  us, 
Know  you  of  this  taxation?  " 

"  Again,  they  use  a  strange  and  unjust  exaction,  in  causing  the  subjects 
to  pay  poundage  of  their  own  debts,  due  from  your  majesty  unto  them." 

"  Q.  Kath These  exactions, 

Whereof  my  sovereign  would  have  note,  they  are 


THE  HENRY  VIII.  275 

Most  pestilent  to  the  hearing;  and,  to  bear  them, 
The  back  is  sacrifice  to  the  load.  .  .  . 

K-  Hen-  Still  exaction ! 

The  nature  of  it?    In  what  kind,  let 's  know, 
Is  this  exaction?" 

"  By  law  they  ought  to  show  their  commission,  and  the  form  of  commis- 
sion is  by  law  set  down." 

"  For  the  second  point,  most  gracious  sovereign,  touching  the  quantity 
which  they  take,  far  above  that  which  is  answered  by  your  majesty's  use; 
they  are  the  only  multipliers  in  the  world;  they  have  the  art  of  multiplica- 
tion. For  it  is  true,  that  there  is  no  pound  profit,  which  redoundeth  to  your 
majesty  in  this  course,  but  induceth  and  begetteth  three  pounds  damage 
upon  your  subjects,  besides  this  discontent." 

"  Q.  Kath The  subjects'  grief 

Comes  through  commissions,  which  compel  from  each 

The  sixth  part  of  his  substance,  to  be  levied 

Without  delay ;  and  the  pretence  for  this 

Is  nam'd  —  your  wars  iii  France.    This  makes  bold  mouths: 

Tongues  spit  their  duties  out,  and  cold  hearts  freeze 

Allegiance  in  them 

K.  Hen.  Have  you  a  precedent 

Of  this  commission?    I  believe  not  any. 
We  must  not  rend  our  subjects  from  our  laws, 
And  stick  them  in  our  will.     Sixth  part  of  each? 
A  trembling  contribution !     Why,  we  take 
From  every  tree,  lop,  bark,  and  part  o'  th'  timber; 
And,  though  we  leave  it  with  a  root,  thus  hack'd, 
The  air  will  drink  the  sap.     To  every  county 
Where  this  is  questional,  send  our  letters  with 
Free  pardon  to  each  man  that  has  denied 
The  force  of  this  commission." 

"  Again,  the}'  take  trees,  which  by  law  they  cannot  do ;  timber  trees, 
which  are  the  beauty,  countenance,  and  shelter  of  men's  houses.  .  .  .  And 
if  a  gentleman  be  too  hard  for  them,  while  he  is  at  home,  they  will  watch 
their  time,  when  there  is  but  a  bailiff  or  servant  remaining,  and  put  the  axe 
to  the  root  of  the  tree,  ere  ever  the  master  can  stop  it " :  — 

"  We  set  the  axe  to  thy  usurping  root."  —  3  Hen.  VI,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

This  speech  was  delivered  in  1 604,  and  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  William  Shakespeare  may  have  known  some- 
thing about  these  exactions  and  complaints.  The  resem- 
blances are  not  those  of  plagiarism,  or  direct  imitation  : 
they  are  rather  such  as  would  naturally  come  from  the 
same  mind,  on  a  kindred  subject,  in  writings  so  different  in 


276  THE  HENRY  VIII. 

kind,  and  at  some  distance  of  time  apart.  At  the  same 
time,  the  marks  of  the  lawyer's  hand  are  almost  as  visible 
in  the  play  as  in  the  speech,  and  the  style  and  language 
are  exceedingly  alike  in  both. 

In  like  manner,  a  comparison  of  Bacon's  Discourse  in 
Praise  of  the  Queen  with  Cranmer's  speech  in  compliment 
to  King  James,  in  the  last  scene  of  the  play,  will  render  it 
next  to  certain  that  the  speech  came  from  the  same  source 
as  the  Discourse  itself.  Some  sentences  may  be  introduced, 
also,  from  other  speeches  and  writings  of  nearly  the  same 
date,  and  also,  some  passages  from  the  Sonnets,  as  follows :  — 

"  Whose  impenal  virtues  contend  with  the  excellences  of  her  person ;  both 
virtues  contend  with  her  fortune,  and  both  virtue  and  fortune  contend  with 
her  fame.  .  .  .  The  other  benefits  of  her  politic,  clement,  and  gracious 
government  towards  the  subjects  are  without  number;  the  state  of  justice 
good,  .  .  the  security  of  peace  greater  than  can  be  described  by  that  verse:  — 

Tutus  bos  etinim  rura  perambulat : 
Nutrit  rura  Ceres,  almaque  Faustitas : 
Or  that  other, — 

Condit  quisque  diem  collibus  in  suis. 
The  opulency  of  the  peace  such  as,  —  .  .  .  These  virtues  and  perfections, 
with  so  great  felicity,  have  made  her  the  honour  of  her  times,  the  admiration 
of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  excellences  of  her  person  do  make  so  sweet  a  won- 
der." .  .  . 

["  The  perfection  of  your  majesty's  learning,  which  as  a  phcenix  may  call 
whole  vollies  of  wits  to  follow  you."    (King  James,  in  the  Advancement.)'] 

"  That  she  hath  been  as  a  star  of  most  fortunate  influence  upon  the  age 
wherein  she  hath  shined." 

["The  ancient  fable  of  Atlas  that  stood  fixed." — Adv.] 

"  Cran.  All  princely  graces, 

That  mould  up  such  a  mighty  piece  as  this  is, 
With  all  the  virtues  that  attend  the  good, 
Shall  still  be  doubled  on  her:  —  .... 

Good  grows  with  her. 
In  her  days  every  man  shall  eat  in  safety 
»    Under  his  own  vine  what  he  plants;  and  sing 
The  merry  ways  of  peace  to  all  his  neighbours. 
God  shall  be  truly  known ;  and  those  about  her 
From  her  shall  read  the  perfect  ways  of  honour, 
And  by  those  claim  their  greatness,  not  by  blood. 
Nor  shall  this  peace  sleep  with  her:  but  as  when 
The  bird  of  wonder  dies,  the  maiden  phoenix, 


THE  HENRY  VIII.  277 

Her  ashes  new  create  another' heir, 

As  great  in  admiration  as  herself, 

So  shall  she  leave  her  blessedness  to  one 

(When  heaven  shall  call  her  from  this  cloud  of  darkness) 

Who  from  the  sacred  ashes  of  her  honour 

Shall  star-like  rise,  as  great  in  fame  as  she  was, 

And  so  stand  fix'd  " : 

["  And  burn  the  long-liv'd  phoenix  in  her  blood."  —  Bonnet  xix.] 

"  A  prince  whom  we  hold  and  behold  as  an  excellent  pattern  and  example 
to  imitate  in  many  her  royal  virtues."  —  Proclamation. 

"  She  shall  be 
(But  few  now  living  can  behold  that  goodness) 
A  pattern  to  all  princes  living  with  her, 
And  all  that  shall  succeed." 

["  For  beauty's  pattern  to  succeeding  men."  —  Sonnet  xix.] 

"  I  see  your  majesty  is  a  star  that  hath  benevolent  aspect  and  gracious 
influence  upon  all  things  that  tend  to  a  general  good :  — 

Astrum  quo  segetes  gauderent  frugibus,  et  quo 
Duceret  apricis  in  collibus  uva  colorem. 

This  work,  which  is  for  the  bettering  of  men's  bread  and  wine,  which  are 
the  characters  of  temporal  blessings  and  sacraments  of  eternal,  I  hope,  by 
God's  holy  providence,  will  be  ripened  by  Caesar's  star."  —  Letter  to  King. 

"  And  maintain  every  several  estate  in  a  happy  and  flourishing  condi- 
tion." —  Proc. 

[Solomon's]  "  natural  history  of  all  verdure  from  the  mountain  cedar  to 
the  moss  upon  the  wall."  —  Adv. 

"  The  sappy  cedars  tall  like  stately  towers."  — Psalm. 

"  Peace,  plenty,  love,  truth,  terror, 
That  were  the  servants  to  this  chosen  infant, 
Shall  then  be  his,  and  like  a  vine  grow  to  him : 
Wherever  the  bright  sun  of  heaven  shall  shine, 
His  honour  and  the  greatness  of  his  name 
Shall  be,  and  make  new  nations:  he  shall  flourish, 
And,  like  a  mountain  cedar,  reach  his  branches 
To  all  the  plains  about  him." 

["  And  when  from  a  stately  cedar  shall  be  lopped  branches,  which  being 
dead  many  years,  shall  after  revive,  be  jointed  to  the  old  stock,  and  freshly 
grow;  then  shall  Posthumus  end  his  miseries,  Britain  be  fortunate,  and 
flourish  in  peace  and  plenty." —  Cymb.,  Act  V.  Sc.  4.] 

"  Time  is  her  best  commander,  which  never  brought  forth  such  a  prince. 
....  No  praise  of  magnanimity,  nor  of  love,  nor  of  knowledge,  can  inter- 
cept her  praise." 


273  THE    HENRY  VIII. 

["  Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 
Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme ; 
But  you  shall  shine  more  bright  in  these  contents 
Than  unswept  stone  besmear'd  with  sluttish  time. 


'Gainst  death  and  all  oblivious  enmity 
Shall  you  pace  forth;  your  praise  shall  find  room, 
Even  in  the  eyes  of  all  posterity 

That  wear  this  world  out  to  the  ending  doom."  —  Sonnet  lv.] 
"  Yea,  both  roses,  white  and  red,  do  as  well  flourish  in  her  nobility  as  in 
her  beauty."  .  .  . 

"  For  the  beauty  and  many  graces  of  her  presence,"  — 

" that  which  I  did  reserve  for  a  garland  of  her  honour,"  —  .... 

—  "  as  he  shall  never  cease  to  wonder  at  such  a  Queen." 
["  So  all  their  praises  are  but  prophesies 
Of  this  our  time,  all  you  prefiguring ; 
And  fbr  they  look'd  but  with  divining  eyes, 
They  had  not  skill  enough  your  worth  to  sing : 
For  we,  which  now  behold  these  present  days, 
Have  eyes  to  wonder,  but  lack  tongues  to  praise."  —  Sonnet  cvi.] 
"  Beauty  and  honour  in  her  are  so  mingled."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

Further,  that  the  author  had  a  special  intent  to  make 
this  play  acceptable  to  King  James,  is  also  evident  in  the 
studiously  complimentary  manner  in  which  he  speaks  of 
Anne  Bullen  in  the  several  passages  in  which  she  is  brought 
upon  the  scene ;  as  for  instance,  in  that  of  the  maskers 
habited  like  shepherds  :  — 

"  K.  Hen.    The  fairest  hand  I  ever  touch' d.    0,  beauty ! 

'Till  now  I  never  knew  thee 

.     .     .     .    My  Lord  Chamberlain, 

Pry'thee  come  hither.     What  fair  lady  's  that? 

Cham.     An't  please  your  Grace,  Sir  Thomas  Bullen's  daughter, — 
The  Viscount  Rochford,  —  one  of  her  Highness'  women. 

K.  Hen.     By  heaven,  she  is  a  dainty  one.  —  Sweetheart, 
I  were  unmannerly  to  take  you  out, 
And  not  to  kiss  you."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

And  again,  thus,  after  he  has  made  her  his  queen  : 

"  2  Gent.    Heaven  bless  thee !  [Looking  on  the  Queen. 

Thou  hast  the  sweetest  face  I  ever  look'd  on.  — 
Sir,  as  I  have  a  soul,  she  is  an  angel : 
Our  King  has  all  the  Indies  in  his  arms, 
And  more  and  richer  when  he  strains  that  lady: 
I  cannot  blame  his  conscience."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 


THE  HENRY  VIIL  279 

The  story  of  the  maskers  habited  like  shepherds  is  taken 
from  Holinshed,  whose  account  is  pretty  closely  followed 
in  the  play,  but  with  the  very  notable  exception,  that  in 
Holinshed  there  is  no  allusion  whatever  to  Anne  Bullen, 
while  in  the  play,  she  makes  a  prominent  figure  in  the 
scene  ;  and  in  all  these  passages,  her  beauty  and  honor  are 
the  subject  of  particular  remark,  very  much  after  the  style 
of  Bacon  when  speaking  of  Queen  Elizabeth  herself,  in  the 
Felicities,  thus  :  — 

"  Now  to  pass  to  the  excellences  of  her  person :  the  view  of  them  wholly, 
and  not  severally,  do  make  so  sweet  a  wonder,  as  I  fear  to  divide  them. 
Again  nobility  extracted  out  of  the  royal  and  virtuous  line  of  the  kings  of 
England;  yea,  both  roses,  white  and  red,  do  as  well  flourish  in  her  nobility 
as  in  her  beauty.  .  .  For  the  beauty  and  many  graces  of  her  presence,  what 
colours  are  tine  enough  for  such  a  portraiture?  " 

"  To  speak  of  her  fortune,  that  which  I  did  reserve  for  a  garland  of  her 
honour;  and  that  is,  that  she  liveth  a  virgin,  and  hath  no  children:  so  it  is 
that  which  maketh  all  her  other  virtues  and  acts  more  sacred,  more  august, 
more  divine." 

"  As  for  her  memory,  it  hath  gotten  such  life  in  the  mouths  and  hearts  of 
men,  as  that  envy  being  put  out  by  her  death,  and  her  fame  lighted,  I  can- 
not say  whether  the  felicity  of  her  life,  or  the  felicity  of  her  memory  be  the 
greater." 

"  Another  principal  thing  I  cast  into  Queen  Elizabeth's  felicity,  was  the 
time  and  period  of  her  reign ;  not  only  for  that  it  was  long,  but  because  it 
fell  in  that  season  of  her  life,  which  was  most  active  and  fittest  for  the  sway- 
ing of  a  sceptre,  for  she  was  fully  five  and  twenty  years  old  (at  which  age 
the  civil  lawfreeth  from  a  curator)  when  she  came  to  the  crown,  and  reigned 
to  the  seventieth  year  of  her  life ;  so  that  she  never  suffered  the  detriments 
of  pupilage  and  check  of  an  overawing  power,  or  the  inconveniences  of  an 
impotent  and  unwieldy  old  age;  and  old  age  is  not  without  a  competent 
portion  of  miseries,  even  to  private  men ;  but  to  kings,  besides  the  common 
burden  of  years,  it  brings  for  the  most  part  a  declining  in  the  estates  they 
govern,  and  a  conclusion  of  their  lives  without  honour,  .  .  •  Contrariwise, 
Queen  Elizabeth's  fortune  was  so  constant  and  deeply  rooted,  that  no  disas- 
ter in  any  of  her  dominions  accompanied  her  indeed  declining  but  still  able 
years." 

And  very  like  is  the  tone  of  the  conclusion  of  Crammer's 
prophetic  speech :  — 

"  K.  Henry.  Thou  speakest  wonders. 

Cran.    She  shall  be,  to  the  happiness  of  England, 
An  aged  princess ;  many  days  shall  see  her, 
And  yet  no  day  without  a  deed  to  crown  it. 


280  THE  HENRY  VIII. 

Would  I  had  known  no  more !  but  she  must  die,  — 
She  must,  the  saints  must  have  her :  yet  a  virgin, 
A  most  unspotted  lily  shall  she  pass 
To  the  ground,  and  all  the  world  shall  mourn  her." 

Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

Another  instance  may  be  added  here  of  those  numerous 
resemblances  in  thought  and  word,  which,  though  not 
amounting  in  themselves  to  any  absolute  certainty  of  proof, 
yet  strike  the  mind,  as  it  were,  like  the  sound  of  a  voice 
from  the  world  of  spirits.  In  the  History  of  Henry  VII., 
Bacon  speaks  of  Queen  Katherine  thus  :  — 

"  And  the  lady  Katherine  herself  (a  sad  and  religious  woman),  long  after, 
when  King  Henry  the  Eighth  his  resolution  of  a  divorce  from  her  was  first 
made  known  to  her,  used  some  words,  that  she  had  not  offended,  but  it  was 
a  judgment  of  God,  for  that  her  former  marriage  was  made  in  blood; 
meaning  that  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick." l 

And  thus  she  is  represented  in  the  play :  — 

"  Q.  Kath.  Alas,  sir, 

In  what  have  I  offended  you?  .... 

K.  Hen.  Go  thy  ways,  Kate : 

Thou  art,  alone 

(If  thy  rare  qualities,  sweet  gentleness, 

Thy  meekness  saint-like,  wife-like  government, 

Obeying  in  commanding,  and  thy  parts 

Sovereign  and  pious  else,  would  speak  thee  out,) 

The  queen  of  earthly  queens."  ....  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

"  Q.  Kath.    Take  thy  lute,  wench :  my  soul  grows  sad  with  troubles : 
Sing,  and  disperse  them,  if  thou  canst.   Leave  working." — Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"  K.  Hen.  V  th'  progress  of  the  business, 

Ere  a  determinate  resolution,  he 
(I  mean  the  bishop)  did  require  a  respite; 
Wherein  he  might  the  king  his  lord  advertise 
Whether  our  daughter  were  legitimate, 
Respecting  this  our  marriage  with  the  dowager, 

Sometime  our  brother's  wife 

First,  methought, 

I  stood  not  in  the  smile  of  heaven ;  who  had 
Commanded  nature,  that  my  lady's  womb, 
If  it  conceived  a  male  child  by  me,  should 
Do  no  more  offices  of  life  to  't  than 
The  grave  does  to  the  dead ;  for  her  male  issue 

1  Works  (Boston),  XII.  306. 


THE  HENRY  VIII.  281 

Or  died  where  they  were  made,  or  shortly  after 
This  world  had  air'd  them.    Hence  I  took  a  thought, 
This  was  a  judgment  on  me;  that  my  kingdom, 
Well  worthy  the  best  heir  o'  th'  world,  should  not 
Be  gladded  in  't  by  me." — Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

This  last  circumstance  of  the  judgment  of  God  is  men- 
tioned by  Holinshed ;  but  inasmuch  as  other  particulars, 
and  among  them,  the  fact  of  Katherine  being  a  "  saint- 
like," "  pious,"  and  "  sad  "  woman,  or  "  a  sad  and  religious 
woman,"  are  not  noticed  in  Holinshed,  there  is  the  more 
reason  to  infer,  what  the  whole  style  and  manner  would 
seem  fully  to  warrant,  that  it  was  Bacon,  rather  than  an- 
other, who  built  upon  that  author.  Neither  could  Shake- 
speare have  had  any  help  from  the  History  of  Henry  VII., 
nor  from  the  Felicities  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  which  were  not 
published  until  after  the  play  appeared. 

Whether  or  not  the  appearance  of  this  play  had  any 
bearing  upon  the  expected  vacancy  in  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral's place,  is  only  matter  of  probability ;  but  it  is  certain 
that,  during  the  preceding  year,  Bacon  had  written  several 
letters  to  the  King,  plaintively  urging  that  he  had  served 
"  above  a  prenticehood,"  now  "  full  seven  years  "  in  "  one 
of  the  painfullest  places "  in  the  kingdom  (that  of  Solici- 
tor), and  entreating  his  majesty's  "royal  promise  to  suc- 
ceed," if  he  lived,  "  unto  the  other  place."  And  he  said,  "  I 
did  conceive  your  majesty  may  think  it  rather  a  kind  of 
dullness,  or  want  of  faith,  than  modesty,  if  I  should  not 
come  with  my  pitcher  to  Jacob's  well  as  others  do  "  :  like 
the  fault  of  Cordelia,  it  might  be  deemed  "  a  tardiness  in 
nature."  He  went  so  far  as  to  suggest,  that  "  since  God 
had  brought  his  own  years  to  fifty-two,  it  were  better  for 
him,  otherwise,  then,  while  he  had  "some  little  reputa- 
tion in  the  world,"  to  give  over  the  course  he  was  in,  and 
"  make  proof  to  do  his  majesty  some  honor  by  his  pen "  ; 
and  the  boon  prayed  for  had  been  granted  "  on  the  word 
of  a  king."  As  the  play  was  not  printed  until  1623,  it  is, 
of  course,  impossible  to  ascertain  with  positive  certainty, 


282  THE  HENRY  VIII. 

whether  anything,  or  how  much,  may  have  been  added  to 
it,  after  the  date  of  its  first  appearance.  Some  critics  have 
observed  such  differences  in  the  style  and  versification  of 
different  parts  of  it  as  to  raise  a  doubt  whether  it  were  all 
the  work  of  the  same  author.  But  in  this  matter  of  versi- 
fication, it  may  be  well  to  remember  Bacon's  remark,  that 
"  some  men's  behaviour  is  like  a  verse,  wherein  every  syl- 
lable is  measured ;  how  can  a  man  comprehend  great  mat- 
ters, that  breaketh  his  mind  too  much  to  small  observa- 
tions ?  "  1  And  his  remarks  on  verse,  generally,  in  the  De 
Augmentis,  may  justly  claim  attention  in  any  criticism  of 
the  verse  of  Shakespeare  :  — 

"  The  ancients  used  hexameter  for  histories  and  eulogies ;  elegiac  for  com- 
plaints; iambic  for  invectives;  lyric  for  odes  and  hymns.  Nor  have  the 
modern  poets  been  wanting  in  this  wisdom,  so  far  as  their  own  languages 
are  concerned.  The  fault  has  been,  that  some  of  them,  out  of  too  much 
zeal  for  antiquity,  have  tried  to  train  the  modern  languages  into  the  ancient 
measures  (hexameter,  elegiac,  saphic,  etc.);  measures  incompatible  with  the 
structures  of  the  languages  themselves,  and  no  less  offensive  to  the  ear.  In 
these  things  the  judgment  of  the  sense  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  precepts  of 
art,  —  as  the  poet  says,  — 

Coense  fercula  nostra 
Mallem  convms  quam  placuisse  cocia. 

And  it  is  not  art,  but  abuse  of  art,  when,  instead  of  perfecting  nature,  it 
perverts  it." 

Indeed,  it  is  not  improbable,  that  this  play  received  some 
considerable  additions  and  emendations  from  the  matured 
experience  of  the  master's  hand,  after  his  own  fall  from 
power,  when  he  had  bidden  farewell  to  all  his  "greatness," — 
when  he  had  "  done  with  such  vanities  "  as  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  had  found,  at  last,  "  the  blessedness  of  being 
little."  At  least,  this  celebrated  speech  of  Wolsey  to  Crom- 
well is  not  to  be  found  in  Holinshed,  from  whose  history  the 
matter  of  the  play  is  chiefly  taken,  and  much  of  it  merely 
turned  into  verse  :  it  has  been  remarked,  too,  that  a  certain 
twang  of  pulpit  eloquence  is  audible  in  it ;  and  truly 
enough,  if  it  be  understood  that  the  preacher  was  this 

i  Essay,  In. 


THE  HENRY  VIII.  283 

same  high  priest  of  Nature,  Justice,  and  Truth,  on  whom 
the  wall  had  fallen,  though  not  the  greatest  sinner  in 
Israel,  and  who  now  confessed  himself  to  have  been  "  hum- 
bled as  a  Christian,  but  not  dejected  as  a  worldling  "  :  — 

"  Say,  Wolsey,  that  once  trod  the  ways  of  glory, 
And  sounded  all  the  depths  and  shoals  of  honour, 
Found  thee  a  way,  out  of  his  wrack,  to  rise  in ; 
A  sure  and  safe  one,  though  thy  master  miss'd  it. 
Mark  but  my  fall,  and  that  that  ruin'd  me. 
Cromwell,  I  charge  thee,  fling  away  ambition : 
By  that  sin  fell  the  angels ;  how  can  man,  then, 
The  image  of  his  Maker,  hope  to  win  by  't  ? 
Love  thyself  last :  cherish  those  hearts  that  hate  thee. 
Corruption  wins  not  more  than  honesty. 
Still  in  thy  right  hand  carry  gentle  peace, 
To  silence  envious  tongues:  be  just  and  fear  not. 
Let  all  the  ends  thou  aim'st  at  be  thy  country's, 
Thy  God's,  and  Truth's:  then,  if  thou  fall'st,  0  Cromwell ! 
Thou  fall'st  a  blessed  martyr."  —  Act  111.  Sc.  2. 

And  this  conclusion  sounds  very  much  like  the  Essay  ou 
Truth  :  — 

"  Certainly,  it  is  heaven  upon  earth,  to  have  a  man's  mind  move  in  char- 
ity, rest  in  Providence,  and  turn  upon  the  poles  of  Truth." 

At  any  rate,  it  is  a  most  positive  and  indubitable  fact, 
that  on  the  fifth  of  September,  1621,  whether  he  were  then 
engaged  upon  a  revision  of  these  plays  or  not,  he  writes  a 
letter  to  the  King,  from  his  retreat  at  Gorhambury,  to  which 
he  appends  a  remarkable  postscript,  by  which  it  appears 
that  the  similarity  of  his  own  case  to  that  of  the  fallen 
Cardinal  in  the  play  had  very  forcibly  come  to  his  mind ; 
and  he  seems  to  have  been  struggling  with  his  own  con- 
science to  avert  the  parallel,  thus  :  — 

"  Cardinal  Wolsey  said  that  if  he  had  pleased  God  as  he  pleased  the  king 
he  had  not  been  ruined.  My  conscience  saith  no  such  thing ;  for  I  know 
not  but  in  serving  you,  I  served  God  in  one.  But  it  may  be  if  I  had  pleased 
God,  as  I  had  pleased  you,  it  would  have  been  better  for  me."  1 

The  play  reads  thus  :  — 
l  Letter  to  the  King,  Works  (Mont.),  XII.  411;  Works  (Philad.),  HI.  136. 


284  THE  HENRY  VIII. 

"  Wol.  0  Cromwell,  Cromwell ! 

Had  I  but  serv'd  my  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  serv'd  my  King,  he  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

It  is  barely  possible,  here,  that  Bacon  may  have  remem- 
bered Shakespeare's  play,  though  it  had  never  been  printed, 
or  that  William  Shakespeare,  as  well  as  Bacon,  may  have 
followed  the  same  historical  account  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  in 
Holinshed,  Hall,  or  Stowe  ;  but  in  the  brevity  and  peculiar 
turn  of  the  expression,  and  in  the  use  of  the  verb  to  have 
and  the  word  but,  the  manner  of  Bacon  may  be  distinctly 
recognized  in  the  play.  Again,  Bacon  uses  the  expression 
"  if  he  had  pleased  God  as  he  pleased  the  King  he  had  not 
been  ruined"  The  word  ruined  is  not  in  Holinshed,  but 
it  appears  in  the  preceding  line  of  the  play :  — 

"Mark  but  my  fall,  and  that  that  ruin'd  me." 

It  is  evident  that  Holinshed  had  been  consulted,  and  that 
his  account  had,  in  general,  been  followed  in  the  play ;  but 
it  is  also  clear,  that  some  other  author,  probably  Cavendish, 
from  whom  all  the  later  historians  drew  their  materials,  had 
also  been  consulted.  Cavendish's  "  Life  and  Death  of 
Thomas  Woolsey,"  written  prior  to  1557,  remained  in  MSS. 
until  1641 ; x  but  copies  of  it  had  been  deposited  in  various 
libraries  at  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  London.  Hall  and 
Holinshed  drew  from  the  MSS.,  and  John  Stowe  had  bor- 
rowed a  copy.  The  story  of  Anne  Bullen  must  have  been 
derived  from  Cavendish,  or  from  some  other  copier  than 
Holinshed ;  but  the  play  varies  considerably  from  Caven- 
dish, in  the  scenes  concerning  Anne  Bullen  ;  as  for  instance, 
in  the  scene  of  the  maskers,  Wolsey  makes  a  mistake  and 
selects  Sir  Edward  Neville  for  the  king,  while  in  the  play, 
he  makes  a  good  hit,  and  finds  the  king.  It  is  certain 
that  Bacon's  studies  for  his  Histories  began  at  an  early 
date,  and  must  have  made  him  familiar  with  these  histo- 
rians ;  and  it  is  highly  probable,  if  not  quite  certain,  that  he 
i  Harhian  Misc.,  V.  123. 


THE  HENRY  VIII.  285 

would  have  an  opportunity  to  consult  one  of  the  MSS.  copies 
of  Cavendish.  Holinshed's  statement  of  this  saying  of  the 
dying  Cardinal,  drawn  from  Cavendish,  is  as  follows :  — 

"  Sir,  (quoth  he,)  I  tarrie  but  the  pleasure  of  God  to  render  up  my  poore 
soule  into  his  hands.  I  see  the  matter,  how  it  is  framed :  but  if  I  had  served 
God  as  diligentlie  as  I  have  doone  the  King,  he  would  not  have  given  me 
over  in  my  greie  haires:  but  it  is  the  just  reward  that  I  must  receive  for  the 
diligent  pains  and  studie  that  I  have  had  to  do  him  service,  not  regarding 
my  service  to  God,  but  onlie  to  satisfie  his  pleasure." l 

The  word  pleased  is  not  used,  nor  is  anything  said,  in  the 
play,  about  the  king's  "  pleasure : "  while  in  the  letter  of 
Bacon,  pleased  is  the  leading  word.  This  shows  that  Bacon 
wrote  rather  from  his  remembrance  of  Holinshed  than  of 
the  play.  At  the  same  time,  the  word  served  is  also  used 
by  Bacon  as  in  Holinshed,  and  it  is  made  the  leading  word 
in  the  play,  as  more  suitable  than  pleased  for  the  few  lines 
of  verse  which  were  required.  And  this  tends  strongly  to 
the  conclusion,  that  the  saying  passed  into  the  play  through 
the  mind  of  Bacon.  Furthermore,  this  word  please  is 
much  in  use,  in  the  same  manner,  both  in  Bacon  and  the 
plays  ;  as  for  instance,  in  the  Julius  Caesar,  thus :  — 

"  Cass.  I  know  not  what  you  mean  by  that ;  but  I  am  sure,  Caesar  fell 
down. .  If  the  tag-rag  people  did  not  clap  him  and  hiss  him,  according 
as  he  pleased  and  displeased  them,  as  they  used  to  do  the  Players  in  the 
theatre,  I  am  no  true  man."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

And  in  the  "  Christian  Paradoxes  "  of  Bacon,  we  have 
this :  — 

"He  knoweth  if  he  please  man,  he  cannot  be  the  servant  of  Christ;  yet, 
for  Christ's  sake,  he  pleaseth  all  men  in  all  things." 

In  like  manner,  the  story  of  King  Henry  the  Sixth's 
prophecy,  about  young  Henry  Earl  of  Richmond,  passes 
from  Holinshed  into  the  play  of  Henry  VI.,  pretty  certainly 
through  the  head  of  Bacon ;  for,  in  the  Essay  of  Proph- 
ecies, he  says,  "  Henry  the  Sixth  of  England  said  of  Henry 
the  Seventh,  when  he  was  a  lad,  and  gave  him  water,  This 
is  the  lad  that  shall  enjoy  the  crown  for  which  we  strive." 
i  Chron.  of  Eng.  (Lond.  1808),  ffl.  755. 


286  JULIUS  CESAR. 

And  it  is  thus  related  in  the  play  :  — 

"K.  Hen.    My  Lord  of  Somerset,  what  youth  is  that, 
Of  whom  you  seem  to  have  so  tender  care  ? 
Som.    My  liege,  it  is  young  Henry,  Earl  of  Richmond. 
K.  Hen.     Come  hither,  England's  hope :  if  secret  powers 

[Lays  his  hand  on  his  head. 
Suggest  but  truth  to  my  divining  thoughts, 
This  pretty  lad  will  prove  our  country's  bliss. 
His  looks  are  full  of  peaceful  majesty; 
His  head  by  nature  fram'd  to  wear  a  crown, 
His  hand  to  wield  a  sceptre ;  and  himself 
Likely,  in  time,  to  bless  a  regal  throne." 

3  Hen.  VI.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  6. 

§  3.  JULIUS   CAESAR. 

As  we  have  seen,  there  is  satisfactory  evidence,  that 
Bacon  had  made  a  special  study  of  the  life  and  times  of 
Julius  Caesar.  The  play  of  this  name  was  not  printed  until 
it  appeared  in  the  Folio,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  written 
about  the  year  1607,  just  when  Bacon  was  engaged  upon 
his  Characters  of  Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar  (written  in 
Latin),  in  which  allusion  is  made  to  Caesar's  ambition  for  a 
crown,  in  these  words  of  the  translation  :  — 

"  For  aiming  at  a  real  power,  he  was  content  to  pass  by  all  vain  pomp  and 
outward  shows  of  power  throughout  his  whole  life;  till  at  the  last,  whether 
high-flown  with  the  continual  exercise  of  power,  or  corrupted  with  flatteries, 
he  affected  the  ensigns  of  power  (the  style  and  diadem  of  a  king),  which 
was  the  bait  which  wrought  his  overthrow." 

The   Advancement   contains  a  critical   account  of  the 

merits  of  Julius  Caesar  as  a  writer,  and  also  this  passage, 

which  may  be  compared  with  the  following  lines  of  the 

play :  — 

"  Cresar  did  extremely  affect  the  name  of  king ;  and  some  were  set  on,  as 
he  passed  by,  in  popular  acclamation  to  salute  him  king;  whereupon  finding 
the  cry  weak  and  poor,  he  put  it  off  thus,  in  a  kind  of  jest,  as  if  they  had 
mistaken  his  surname:  Non  rex  sum,  sed  Ccesar." 

The  play  reads  thus  :  — 

"  Casca.  Why,  there  was  a  crown  offered  him :  and,  being  offered  him, 
he  put  it  by  with  the  back  of  his  hand,  thus ;  and  then  the  people  fell  a' 
shouting. 


JULIUS  OESAR.  287 

Bru.    What  was  the  second  noise  for? 

Case.    Why,  for  that  too. 

Cos.    They  shouted  thrice:  what  was  the  last  cry  for? 

Cage.     Why  for  that  too. 

Bru.     Was  the  crown  offered  him  thrice  ? 

Case.  Ay,  marry,  was 't,  and  he  put  it  by  thrice,  every  time  gentler  than 
the  other;  and  at  every  putting  by  mine  honest  neighbors  shouted. 

Cos.    Who  offered  him  the  crown? 

Case    Why,  Antony. 

Bru.    Tell  us  the  manner  of  it,  gentle  Casca. 

Case.  I  can  as  well  be  hanged  as  tell  the  manner  of  it :  it  was  mere 
foolery,  I  did  not  mark  it.  I  saw  Mark  Anthony  offer  him  a  crown: — yet 
'twas  not  a  crown  neither,  'twas  one  of  these  coronets;  —  and,  as  I  told  you, 
he  put  it  by  once ;  but  for  all  that,  to  my  thinking,  he  would  fain  have  had 
it.  Then  he  offered  it  to  him  again ;  then  he  put  it  by  again ;  but,  to  my 
thinking,  he  was  very  loath  to  lay  his  fingers  off  it.  And  then  he  offered  it 
the  third  time ;  he  put  it  the  third  time  by :  and  still  as  he  refused  it,  the 
rabblement  shouted,  and  clapped  their  chapped  hands,  and  threw  up  their 
sweaty  night-caps,  and  uttered  such  a  deal  of  stinking  breath,  because  Cresar 
refused  the  crown,  that  it  had  almost  choked  Cffisar;  for  he  swooned,  and 
fell  down  at  it 

Bru.     What  said  he  when  he  came  unto  himself? 

Case.  Marry,  before  he  fell  down,  when  he  perceived  the  common  herd 
was  glad  he  refused  the  crown,  he  plucked  me  ope  his  doublet,  and  offered 

them  his  throat  to  cut When  he  came  to  himself  again,  he  said, 

if  he  had  done,  or  said,  anything  amiss,  he  desired  their  worships  to  think 
it  was  his  infirmity 

Cos I  will  this  night, 

In  several  hands,  in  at  his  windows  throw, 

As  if  they  came  from  several  citizens, 

Writings,  all  tending  to  the  great  opinion 

That  Home  holds  of  his  name ;  wherein  obscurely 

Ciesar's  ambition  shall  be  glanced  at."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Here,  it  is  not  possible  that  Bacon  could  have  followed 
Shakespeare,  the  Advancement  being  older  than  the  play ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible,  so  far  as  the  date  is 
concerned,  that  Shakespeare  may  have  seen  the  Advance- 
ment as  well  as  Plutarch's  Antony  (in  North's  translation *), 
from  which  some  part  of  the  story  seems  to  have  been 
taken.     But  the  play  follows  the  ideas  of  Bacon  rather 

i  Lives  of  Noble  Grecians  and  Romans,  translated  out  of  French  into 
English  by  Thomas  North,  Knight  (dedicated  to  Q.  Eliz.  16  Jan.  1579). 
London  ed.  1631,  p.  917. 


288  JULIUS  CAESAR. 

than  those  of  Plutarch,  and  adopts  the  very  peculiarities 
of  Bacon's  expressions,  wherein  they  differ  from  North's 
Plutarch ;  as,  for  instance,  in  these  :  "  he  put  it  by  with  the 
back  of  his  hand,  thus"  in  the  play,  and  "  he  put  it  off  thus" 
in  Bacon  ;  "  what  was  that  last  cry  for  f  "  and  "finding  the 
cry  weak  and  poor  " ;  "  it  was  mere  foolery  "  and  "  in  a  kind 
of jest"  ;  "he  was  very  loath  to  lay  his  fingers  off  it ,"  and 
"  he  put  it  off  thus  "  ;  while  these  particular  expressions  are 
not  used  in  North's  Plutarch. 

Again,  North's  Plutarch  speaks  of  "  a  laurell  crowne  " 
having  "  a  royal  band  or  diademe  wreathed  about  it,  which 
in  old  time  was  the  ancient  marke  and  token  of  a  king  "  ; 
in  the  play,  it  is  called  "  a  crown,"  or  "  one  of  these  coro- 
nets," but  never  a  diadem ;  while  in  Bacon,  it  is  "  the  style 
and  diadem  of  a  king  "  :  whence  it  would  seem  clear  that 
Bacon  followed  Plutarch  rather  than  the  play. 

Again,  the  phrase  "  tell  us  the  manner  of  it "  finds  a 
repetition  in  this  from  Bacon,  "  the  bed  we  call  a  hot  bed,  and 
the  manner  of  it  is  this."  Casca  can  "  as  well  be  hanged  as 
tell  the  manner  of  it  "  ;  and  then,  they  "  uttered  such  a  deal 
of  stinking  breath,"  also  not  in  Plutarch ;  which  sounds 
very  much  like  Bacon's  saying  of  the  crowd  and  throng 
that  attended  the  procession  when  he  took  his  seat  in 
Chancery,  that  "there  was  much  ado  and  a  great  deal  of 
world, hell  to  me,  or  purgatory,  at  least." 

Indeed,  the  whole  style  and  manner  of  the  scene,  and 
the  thought,  expression,  language,  and  manner  of  the  whole 
play,  are  so  decidedly  Baconian,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  doubt,  either  that  the  story  of  Plutarch  passed  through 
his  pen  into  this  scene,  or  that  the  play  was  written  by 
him  ;  a  conclusion  that  is  especially  confirmed  by  the  purely 
classical  character  of  the  piece,  and  by  the  considera- 
tion that  William  Shakespeare  could  have  had  but  little 
pretensions  to  learning  and  skill  in  that  kind.  But  if  there 
be  a  lingering  doubt  in  any  mind,  it  must  certainly  be  re- 
moved by  a  comparison  of  these  further  passages  from  the 


JULIUS  CESAR.  289 

Essay  of  Friendship  (first  printed  in  1612)  with  the  second 
act  of  the  play  :  — 

"  With  Julius  Cajsar,  Decimus  Brutus  had  obtained  that  interest,  as  he 
set  him  down  in  his  testament  for  heir  in  remainder  after  his  nephew.  And 
this  was  the  man  that  had  power  with  him  to  draw  him  forth  to  his  death. 
For  when  Cresar  would  have  discharged  the  Senate,  in  regard  of  some  ill 
presages,  and  especially  a  dream  of  Calpurnia ;  this  man  lifted  him  gently 
by  the  arm  out  of  his  chair,  telling  him  he  hoped  he  would  not  dismiss  the 
Senate  till  his  wife  had  dreamt  a  better  dream." 

"  Cas.  But  it  is  doubtful  yet 

Whether  Caesar  will  come  forth  to-day,  or  no ; 
For  he  is  superstitious  grown  of  late, 
Quite  from  the  main  opinion  he  held  once 
Of  fantasy,  of  dreams,  and  ceremonies. 
It  may  be,  these  apparent  prodigies, 
The  nnaccustom'd  terror  of  this  night, 
And  the  persuasion  of  his  augurers, 
May  hold  him  from  the  Capitol  to-day. 

Bee.    Never  fear  that:  If  he  be  so  resolv'd, 
I  can  o'ersway  him.         .... 
Let  me  work ; 

For  I  can  give  his  humour  the  true  bent; 
And  I  will  bring  him  to  the  Capitol."  —  Act  IT.  Sc.  1. 


Cces.    The  cause  is  in  my  will;  I  will  not  come: 
That  is  enough  to  satisfy  the  Senate ; 
But,  for  your  private  satisfaction, 
Because  I  love  you,  I  will  let  you  know. 
Calpurnia  here,  my  wife,  stays  me  at  home: 
She  dreamt  to-night  she  saw  my  statua, 
Which,  like  a  fountain  with  a  hundred  spouts, 
Did  run  pure  blood ;  and  many  lusty  Romans 
Came  smiling,  and  did  bathe  their  hands  in  it. 
And  these  does  she  apply  for  warnings  and  portents, 
And  evils  imminent;  and  on  her  knee 
Hath  begg'd  that  I  will  stay  at  home  to-day. 

Bee.    This  dream  is  all  amiss  interpreted : 
It  was  a  vision,  fair  and  fortunate. 
Your  statue  spouting  blood  in  many  pipes, 
In  which  so  many  smiling  Romans  bath'd, 
Signifies  that  from  you  great  Rome  shall  suck 
Reviving  blood:  and  that  great  men'shall  press 
For  tinctures,  stains,  relics,  and  cognizance : 
This  by  Calpurnia's  dream  is  signified. 

Oe$.    And  this  way  you  have  well  expounded  it. 
19 


290  THE  SOOTHSAYER. 

Dec.    I  have,  when  you  have  heard  what  I  can  say : 
And  know  it  now.    The  Senate  have  concluded 
To  give  this  day  a  crown  to  mighty  Caesar: 
If  you  shall  send  them  word  you  will  not  come, 
Their  minds  may  change.    Besides,  it  were  a  mock 
Apt  to  be  render'd,  for  some  one  to  say, 
'  Break  up  the  Senate  till  another  time, 
When  Caesar's  wife  shall  meet  with  better  dreams.'  " 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

The  Essay  continues  :  — 

"  And  it  seemeth  his  favor  was  so  great,  as  Antonius  in  a  letter  which  is 
recited  verbatim  in  one  of  Cicero's  Philippics,  calleth  him  venejica,  witch ; 

as  if  he  had  enchanted  Caesar The  like  or  more  was  between 

Septimius  Severus  and  Plautianus.  For  he  forced  his  eldest  son  to  marry 
the  daughter  of  Plautianus ;  and  would  often  maintain  Plautianus  in  doing 
affronts  to  his  son ;  and  did  write  also  in  a  letter  to  the  Senate,  by  these 
words  :  I  love  the  man  so  well,  as  I  wish  he  may  over-live  me." 

And  the  same  thing  appears  in  the  play  thus :  — 

"  Cos.    Decius,  well  urg'd.    I  think  it  is  not  meet, 
Mark  Antony,  so  well  belov'd  of  Caesar, 
Should  outlive  Caesar." — Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

§  4.   THE    SOOTHSAYER. 

In  the  Natural  History  (Sylva  Sylvarum),  Bacon  goes 
into  some  curious  investigations  of  "  the  force  of  imagina- 
tion," and  of  the  means  whereby  one  mind  may  be  affected 
by  another  through  the  imagination  ;  and,  in  the  course  of 
the  work,  he  gives  some  illustrations  of  his  experiments 
"touching  the  emission  of  immateriate  virtues  from  the 
minds  and  spirits  of  men,"  as  in  jugglers,  soothsayers, 
witches,  and  the  like. 

He  begins  by  saying  that  "  imagination  is  of  three  kinds : 
the  first  joined  with  belief  of  that  which  is  to  come  "  ;  and 
under  this  head  he  proceeds  thus :  "  The  problem  therefore 
is,  whether  a  man  constantly  and  strongly  believing  that 

such  a  thing  shall  be, it  doth  help  anything  to  the 

effecting  of  the  thing  itself.  And  here  again  one  must  warily 
distinguish ;  for  it  is  not  meant,  as  hath  been  partly  said 
before,  that  it  should  help  by  making  a  man  more  stout,  or 


THE  SOOTHSAYER.  291 

more  industrious,  in  which   kind  a  constant  helief  doth 
much,  but  merely  by  a  secret  operation,  or  binding,  or 

changing  the  spirit  of  another ; for  whatsoever  a 

man  imagineth  doubtingly,  or  with  fear,  must  needs  do 
hurt,  if  imagination  hath  any  power  at  all."  And  of  all 
this  we  have  an  exemplification  in  the  "Julius  Csesar," 
where  Caesar  bids  the  soothsayer  come  forward  and  repeat 
his  warning,  confronting  him  face  to  face,  as  if  to  try  the 
courage  and  faith  of  the  soothsayer  himself  in  his  own 
prophecy,  thus :  — 
"Sooth.    Caesar! 

Goes.    Ha!    Who  calls? 

Casca.    Bid  every  noise  be  still.    Peace  yet  again ! 

[Music  ceases. 

Cms.    Who  is  it  in  the  press  that  calls  on  me  ? 
I  hear  a  tongue,  shriller  than  all  the  music, 
Cry,  Caesar !    Speak :  Caesar  is  turn'd  to  hear. 

Sooth.    Beware  the  ides  of  March. 

Cos.  What  man  is  that? 

Bru.    A  soothsayer  bids  you  beware  the  ides  of  March. 

Cos.    Set  him  before  me;  let  me  see  his  face. 

Case.    Fellow,  come  from  the  throng :  look  upon  Caesar. 

Cces.    What  say'st  thou  to  me  now  ?    Speak  once  again. 

Sooth.    Beware  the  ides  of  March. 

Cos.    He  is  a  dreamer;  let  us  leave  him:  —  pass." 

Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

The  resemblance  here  might  appear  to  be  somewhat  far- 
fetched, if  it  were  not  confirmed  by  the  more  direct  allusion, 
and  more  explicit  identity,  afforded  in  the  play  of  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,  in  reference  to  this  same  overmastering 
spirit  and  another  soothsayer.  In  the  Natural  History 
(not  printed  until  after  his  death),  he  tells  the  story  of 
Cleopatra's  soothsayer,  thus  :  — 

"940.  There  was  an  Egyptian  soothsayer,  that  made  Antonius  believe 
that  his  genius  (which  otherwise  was  brave  and  confident)  was,  in  the 
presence  of  Octavianus  Caesar,  poor  and  cowardly ;  and  therefore,  he  ad- 
vised him  to  absent  himself  as  much  as  he  could  and  remove  far  from  him. 
This  soothsayer  was  thought  to  be  suborned  by  Cleopatra,  to  make  him 
live  in  Egypt,  and  other  remote  places  from  Rome.  Howsoever,  the  con- 
ceit of  a  predominant  or  mastering  spirit  of  one  man  over  another,  is 
ancient,  and  received  still,  even  in  vulgar  opinion." 


292  THE  SOOTHSAYER. 

And  again,  in  the  De  Augmentis,  he  speaks  of  "  those 
conceits  (now  become  as  it  were  popular)  of  the  mastering 
spirit,  of  men  unlucky  and  ill-omened,  of  the  glances  of 
love,  envy,  and  the  like." 

And  the  story  reappears  in  the  play,  thus  :  — 

"  Ant.    Now,  sirrah:  you  do  wish  yourself  in  Egypt? 

Sooth.    Would  I  had  never  come  from  thence,  nor  you  thither ! 

Ant.    If  you  can,  your  reason  ? 

Sooth.  I  see  it  in  my  motion,  have  it  not  in  my  tongue :  but  yet  hie  you 
again  to  Egypt. 

Ant.    Say  to  me,  whose  fortunes  shall  rise  higher,  Caesar's  or  mine  ? 

Sooth.     Caesar's. 
Therefore,  0  Antony !  stay  not  by  his  side : 
Thy  daemon,  that's  thy  spirit  which  keeps  thee,  is 
Noble,  courageous,  high,  unmatchable, 
Where  Caesar  is  not;  but  near  him,  thy  angel 
Becomes  a  fear,  as  being  o'erpower'd:  therefore, 
Make  space  enough  between  you. 

Ant.  Speak  this  no  more. 

Sooth.    To  none  but  thee ;  no  more,  but  when  to  thee. 
If  thou  dost  play  with  him  at  any  game, 
Thou  'rt  sure  to  lose ;  and,  of  that  natural  luck, 
He  beats  thee  'gainst  the  odds :  thy  lustre  thickens, 
When  he  shines  by.    I  say  again,  thy  spirit 
Is  all  afraid  to  govern  thee  near  him. 
But,  he  away,  't  is  noble. 

Ant.  Get  thee  gone."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

The  "  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  first  printed  in  the  Folio, 
was  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  in  1608,  and  was  most 
probably  written  not  long  before.  Of  course,  Shakespeare 
could  not  have  borrowed  this  story  from  Bacon.  There  is 
more  in  Bacon's  story  than  is  said  by  the  soothsayer 
in  the  play ;  and  this  proves  that  Bacon  drew  from  some 
other  source  than  the  play.  Bacon  states  that  this  sooth- 
sayer was  thought  to  have  been  suborned  by  Cleopatra  to 
make  Antony  live  in  Egypt,  but  this  circumstance  is  not 
mentioned  in  the  play.  A  similar  story  was  to  be  found  in 
North's  translation  of  Plutarch's  life  of  Antony,  which 
Shakespeare  may  have  seen  as  well  as  Bacon  ;  and  it  is 
true  that  some  parts  of  it  are  very  closely  followed  in  the 


THE  SOOTHSAYER.  293 

play.  There  is  little  doubt  that  the  writer  had  read  Plu- 
tarch. But  Plutarch  makes  the  soothsayer  a  member  of 
the  household  of  Antony  at  Rome :  "  "With  Antonius  there 
was  a  Soothsayer  or  Astronomer  of  Egypt,  that  could  cast 
a  figure,  and  judge  of  men's  nativities,  to  tell  them  what 
should  happen  to  them."1  But  the  play,  like  Bacon's 
story,  makes  him  not  only  an  Egyptian,  but  one  of  the 
household  of  Cleopatra ;  and  in  the  play,  he  is  sent  by  Cle- 
opatra as  one  of  her  numerous  messengers  from  Egypt 
to  Antony  at  Rome  to  induce  him  to  return  to  Egypt ;  and 
in  this  he  is  successful ;  all  which  is  in  exact  keeping  with 
Bacon's  statement  that  he  was  thought  to  be  suborned  by 
Cleopatra  to  make  Antony  live  in  Egypt ;  but  of  this  there 
is  not  the  least  hint  in  Plutarch.  All  this  goes  strongly  to 
show,  that  this  story,  together  with  the  doctrine  of  a  pre- 
dominant or  mastering  spirit  of  one  man  over  another, 
went  into  the  play  through  the  Baconian  strainer;  for 
it  is  next  to  incredible,  that  both  Bacon  and  Shakespeare 
should  make  the  same  variations  upon  the  common 
original. 

Again,  in  this  same  Natural  History,  considering  of  the 
substances  that  produce  death  with  least  pain,  he  records 
his  conclusions  upon  the  poison  of  the  asp,  in  these 
words : — 

"  643.  The  death  that  is  most  without  pain,  hath  been  noted  to  be  upon  the 
taking  of  the  potion  of  hemlock ;  which  in  humanity  was  the  form  of  exe- 
cution of  capital  offenders  in  Athens.  The  poison  of  the  asp,  that  Cleopatra 
used,  hath  some  affinity  with  it.  The  cause  is,  for  that  the  torments  of 
death  are  chiefly  raised  by  the  strife  of  the  spirits;  and  these  vapours 
quench  the  spirits  by  degrees;  like  to  the  death  of  an  extreme  old  man.'  I 
conceive  it  is  less  painful  than  opium,  because  opium  hath  parts  of  heat 
mixed." 

And,  that  the  writer  of  this  play  had  the  same  scientific 
knowledge  and  the  same  opinions  of  the  quality  and  effect 
of  this  poison,  will  be  seen  in  these  lines  of  the  play :  — 

"  Cleo.    Hast  thou  the  pretty  worm  of  Nilus  there, 
That  kills  and  pains  not  ? 

i  North's  Plutarch,  926. 


V 


294  THE  SOOTHSAYER. 

Clown.  Truly  I  have  him ;  but  I  would  not  be  the  party  that  should 
desire  you  to  touch  him,  for  his  biting  is  immortal :  those  that  do  die  of  it, 
do  seldom  or  never  recover. 

Cleo.    Remember'st  thou  any  that  have  died  on't  ? 

Clo.  Very  many,  men  and  women  too.  I  heard  of  one  of  them  no  longer 
than  yesterday ;  a  very  honest  woman,  but  something  given  to  lie,  —  as  a 
woman  should  not  do,  but  in  the  way  of  honesty;  — how  she  died  of  the 
biting  of  it,  what  pain  she  felt.  Truly,  she  makes  a  very  good  report  o'  the 
worm. 

Cleo.    Farewell,  kind  Charmian ;  —  Iras,  long  farewell. 

[Kisses  them.    Iras  falls  and  dies. 
Have  I  the  aspick  in  my  lips ?    Dost  fall? 
If  thou  and  nature  can  so  gently  part, 
The  stroke  of  death  is  as  a  lover's  pinch, 

Which  hurts,  and  is  desir'd 

Come,  thou  mortal  wretch, 

[  To  the  asp,  which  she  applies  to  her  breast. 
With  thy  sharp  teeth  this  knot  intrinsicate 
Of  life  at  once  untie :  poor  venomous  fool, 

Be  angry,  and  despatch 

Peace,  peace! 
Dost  thou  not  see  my  baby  at  my  breast, 
That  sucks  the  nurse  asleep  ? 

Char.  0,  break!    0,  break! 

Cleo.    As  sweet  as  balm,  as  soft  as  air,  as  gentle,  — 
O,  Antony !  —  Nay,  I  will  take  thee  too.  —  [Another  asp. 

What  should  I  stay  —  [Falls  and  dies. 

Char.    In  this  wide  world  ?  —  So,  fare  thee  well.  — 


Guard.    This  is  an  aspick's  trail ;  and  these  fig-leaves 
Have  slime  upon  them,  such  as  the  aspick  leaves 
Upon  the  caves  of  Nile. 

Caes.  Most  probable, 

That  so  she  died ;  for  her  physician  tells  me, 
She  hath  pursued  conclusions  infinite 
Of  easy  ways  to  die." — Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

And  there  is  no  doubt,  that  she  was  somehow  thoroughly 
instructed  in  natural  history,  and  well  acquainted  with  "  the 
death  that  is  most  without  pain,"  or  as  gentle  "  as  a  lover's 
pinch,"  and  those  "  vapours  "  that  "  quench  the  spirits  by 
degrees,  like  to  the  death  of  an  extreme  old  man  " ;  nor 
that  the  great  Magician  himself  had  "  pursued  conclusions 
infinite  of  easy  ways  to  die." 


MACBETH.  —  VISIONS.  295 

Though  the  Natural  History  was  chiefly  composed  dur- 
ing the  last  five  years  of  his  life,  yet  we  know  that  he  had 
been  collecting  materials  for  it  for  many  years  before  ;  and 
it  is  very  probable  that  he  was  making  notes  on  the  poison- 
ous qualities  of  plants  and  animals,  and  on  easy  ways  to 
die,  about  the  same  time  that  he  was  engaged  in  writing 
this  play,  and  so  the  asp,  that  Cleopatra  used,  is  noted  with 
the  hemlock,  and  finds  its  way  into  the  same  section  of  this 
work,  in  connection  with  the  same  subject,  "  the  death  that 
is  most  without  pain."  This  inference  is  still  further  con- 
firmed by  the  actual  out-cropping,  in  rather  a  singular 
manner,  of  this  same  word  vapour,  a  little  above,  in  the 
same  scene  of  the  play,  thus :  — 

"  Cleo —  in  their  thick  breaths, 

Rank  of  gross  diet,  shall  we  be  enclouded, 
And  forc'd  to  drink  their  vapour." 

Bacon,  as  we  know,  towards  the  close  of  his  career,  col- 
lected and  digested  the  results  of  his  observations  and 
studies,  through  many  years,  into  a  scientific  history  of 
Life  and  Death  ;  and  in  such  a  man  we  may  find  a  com- 
prehensible source  of  the  natural  science  of  these  plays, 
without  resorting  to  the  childish  and  ridiculous  notion  that 
a  born  genius  can  see  through  nature  at  one  glance. 

§    5.    MACBETH.  —  VISIONS. 

The  tragedy  of  Macbeth  was  certainly  written  between 
1605  and  1610.  The  first  notice  that  we  have  of  it  is,  that 
it  was  performed  at  the  Globe  in  April  1610;  and  there 
are  some  reasons  to  conjecture  that  it  was  written  about 
the  year  1607,  when  Bacon  was  made  Solicitor-General. 
It  may  have  followed  the  "  Antony  and  Cleopatra  "  :  at  any 
rate,  we  find  in  it  an  allusion  to  this  same  soothsayer, 
together  with  some  further  illustration  of  the  same  conceit 
of  a  predominant  or  mastering  spirit  of  one  man  over  an- 
other, thus :  — 


296  MACBETH.  —  VISIONS. 

"  Macb.  Our  fears  m  Banquo 

Stick  deep ;  and  in  his  royalty  of  nature 
Reigns  that  which  would  be  fear'd:  'T  is  much  he  dares ; 
And,  to  that  dauntless  temper  of  his  mind, 
He  hath  a  wisdom  that  doth  guide  his  valour 
To  act  in  safety.    There  is  none  but  he, 
Whose  being  I  do  fear;  and  under  him 
My  genius  is  rebuk'd,  as,  it  is  said, 
Mark  Antony's  was  by  Caesar."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

And  in  the  lines  immediately  following  these,  the  same 
conceit  leads  to  a  like  use  of  this  same  word  predominant, 
thus :  — 

"  Macb.  Do  you  find 

Your  patience  so  predominant  in  your  nature 
That  you  can  let  this  go  ?  " 

The  same  form  of  expression  occurs  again  in  what  Bacon 
writes  concerning  Henry  VII.  and  his  Queen  :  "  But  his 
aversion  towards  the  house  of  York  was  so  predominant  in 
him,  as  it  found  place  not  only  in  his  wars  and  counsels, 
but  in  his  chamber  and  bed " ;  and  again,  in  this  same 
History,  he  uses  the  expression,  "  and  were  predominant 
in  the  King's  nature  and  mind." 

The  incantation  and  vaticination  of  the  witches,  and  the 
prophetic  visions  also,  in  this  play,  bear  unmistakable  marks 
of  Bacon's  inquiries  into  the  natural  history  of  charms  and 
witches,  the  poisonous  plants  and  animals  connected  with 
them  in  the  popular  superstitions,  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  imagination  is  operated  upon  by  immateriate  virtues. 
Speaking  of  his  third  kind  of  imagination,  that  which  is 
"  of  things  not  present  as  if  they  were  present,"  and  of  the 
power  of  it  upon  the  spirits  of  men,  he  says :  — 

"  There  be  three  means  to  fortify  belief:  the  first  is  experience ;  the  second 
is  reason;  and  the  third  is  authority;  ...  for  authority,  it  is  of  two  kinds, 
belief  in  an  art,  and  belief  in  a  man.  Therefore,  if  a  man  believes  in  astrol- 
ogy, ...  or  believe  in  natural  magic,  and  that  a  ring  with  such  a  stone, 
or  such  a  piece  of  living  creature  carried,  will  do  good,  it  may  help  his 
imagination.  .  .  .  And  such  are,  for  the  most  part,  all  witches  and  super- 
stitious persons,  whose  beliefs,  tied  to  their  teachers  and  traditions,  are  no 


MACBETH.  —  VISIONS.  297 

whit  controlled  either  by  reason  or  experience.  Therefore  if  there  be  any 
operation  upon  bodies  in  absence  by  nature,  it  is  like  to  "be  conveyed  from 
man  to  man  as  fame  is;  as  if  a  witch,  by  imagination,  should  hurt  any  afar 
off,  it  cannot  be  naturally;  but  by  working  upon  the  spirit  of  some  that 
cometh  to  the  witch."  —  Nat.  Hist.  c.  x. 

Accordingly,  at  the  close  of  the  first  witch  scene,  Mac- 
beth comes  to  the  witches,  thus :  — 

"  3  Witch.  A  drum !  a  drum ! 

Macbeth  doth  come."  —  Act  I.  8c.  3. 

And  at  the  close  of  the  great  incantation  of  the  fourth  act, 
thus : ' — 

"  2  Witch.     By  the  pricking  of  my  thumbs, 
Something  wicked  this  way  comes.  — 
Open  locks,  whoever  knocks.  [Enter  Macbeth. 

"  Hec.  .  .  .  Get  you  gone, 

And  at  the  pit  of  Acheron 
Meet  me  i'  th'  morning :  thither  he 
Will  come  to  know  his  destiny."  —  Act  HI.  Sc.  5. 

And  in  the  apparition  scene  immediately  following,  Bacon's 
ideas  of  the  nature  of  prophecy  are  repeated  almost  in  his 
own  language.  The  Intellectual  Globe  must  have  been 
written  not  far  from  the  time  when  the  "  Macbeth  "  first  ap- 
peared, though  not  published  until  afterwards;  and  it  is 
manifest  that  Shakespeare  could  have  derived  nothing  from 
this  work.  In  the  first  chapter,  he  defines  his  notions  of 
the  three  several  streams  of  history,  poesy,  and  philosophy, 
and  after  giving  his  meaning  of  poesy  as  nothing  else  but 
"  feigned  history,"  he  proceeds  to  distinguish  history  from 
prophecy  in  the  following  passage  which  may  be  compared 
with  the  play  :  — 

"  Wherefore  we  assert  that  history  itself  either  consists  of  sacred  history, 
or  divine  precepts  and  doctrines,  which  are,  so  to  speak,  an  every  day  phi- 
losophy. And  that  part  which  seems  to  fall  without  this  division,  prophecy, 
is  itself  a  species  of  history,  with  the  prerogative  of  deity  stamped  upon  it 
of  making  all  times  one  duration,  so  that  the  narrative  may  anticipate  the 
fact;  thus  also  the  mode  of  promulgating  vaticination  by  vision,  or  the 
heavenly  doctrines  by  parables,  partakes  of  the  nature  of  poetry  " :  — 

"  War.    There  is  a  history  in  all  men's  lives, 
Figuring  the  nature  of  the  times  deceas'd; 


298  MACBETH.  —  VISIONS. 

The  which  observed,  a  man  may  prophesy, 

With  a  near  aim,  of  the  main  chance  of  things 

As  yet  not  come  to  life,  which  in  their  seeds, 

And  weak  beginnings,  lie  intreasured. 

Such  things  become  the  hatch  and  brood  of  time ; 

And,  by  the  necessary  form  of  this, 

King  Richard  might  create  a  perfect  guess." 

2  Hen.  IV.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

And  again,  in  the  Advancement,  he  says  :  "  Prophecy  is 
but  divine  history ;  which  hath  that  prerogative  over  human, 
as  the  narration  may  be  before  the  fact  as  well  as  after." 
We  may  note  also  that  this  word  anticipate  re-appears  in 
the  "  Precursors  or  Anticipations  of  the  Second  Philosophy." 
And  in  the  play,  this  doctrine  of  prophecy  is  introduced  in 
these  lines :  — 

"  Macb.  He  chid  the  sisters, 

When  first  they  put  the  name  of  King  upon  me, 
And  bade  them  speak  to  him ;  then,  prophet-like, 
They  hail'd  him  father  to  a  line  of  kings. 
Upon  my  head  they  placed  a  fruitless  crown, 
And  put  a  barren  sceptre  in  my  gripe, 
Thence  to  be  wrench'd  with  an  unlineal  hand, 
No  son  of  mine  succeeding."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1.    » 

The  fourth  act  opens  with  the  witches'  incantation,  which 
is  immediately  followed  by  the  Vision  of  future  history,  with 
the  prerogative  of  Deity  stamped  upon  it  of  making  all 
times  one  duration,  thus :  — 

"  Act  IV.  Sc.  1.  —  A  Dark  Cave. 

[  Thunder.    An  Apparition  of  an  armed  Head  rises.] 
Macb.    Tell  me  thou  unknown  power,  — 
1  Witch.  He  knows  thy  thought: 

Hear  his  speech,  but  say  thou  naught." 

The  apparitions  then  rise  in  succession  and  deliver  their 
prophetic  speeches,  when  the  play  proceeds  :  — 

11  Macb.    .  .  .  Tell  me,  (if  your  art 

Can  tell  so  much,)  shall  Banquo's  issue  ever 
Reign  in  this  kingdom  ? 

Witch.  Seek  to  know  no  more. 

Macb.    I  will  be  satisfied :  deny  me  this, 


MACBETH.  —  VISIONS.  299 

And  an  eternal  curse  fall  on  you !    Let  me  know  — 

All.    Show  his  eyes,  and  grieve  his  heart ! 
Come  like  shadows,  so  depart. 

[Eight  Kings  now  appear  in  order. 

Macb.    What!  will  the  line  stretch  out  to  the  crack  of  doom? 
Another  yet?  — A  seventh?  — I  '11  see  no  more:  — 
And  yet  the  eighth  appears,  who  bears  a  glass, 
Which  shows  me  many  more ;  and  some  I  see, 
That  two-fold  balls  and  treble  sceptres  carry. 
Horrible  sight!  —Ay,  now,  I  see,  't  is  true; 
For  the  blood-bolter' d  Banquo  smiles  upon  me, 
And  points  at  them  for  his.  —  What !  is  this  so  ?  " 

Macb.     Time,  thou  anticipaVst  my  dread  exploits : 
The  flighty  purpose  never  is  o'ertook, 
Unless  the  deed  go  with  it." 

Surely,  this  poetry  was  written  to  illustrate  this  philos- 
ophy, and  that,  too,  by  one  who  understood,  that  it  belonged 
to  the  nature  of  dramatic  poetry  to  illustrate  it  very  well ; 
for,  as  Sir  Philip  Sidney  had  said,  "  the  Poet  is  the  Mon- 
arch of  all  sciences  " :  at  bottom,  the  Philosopher  and  the 
Poet  are  one. 

In  the  tragedy  of  Henry  VIII.,  there  is  another  vision, 
in  which  another  of  this  author's  modes  of  affecting  the 
imagination  is  exhibited  and  equally  well  illustrated.  Com- 
pare the  following  passages  :  — 

"955.  The  body  passive  and  to  be  wrought  upon,  (I  mean  not  of  the 
imaginant,)  is  better  wrought  upon,  as  hath  been  partly  touched,  at  some 
times  than  others:  as  if  you  should  prescribe  a  servant  about  a  sick  person, 
whom  you  have  possessed,  that  his  master  shall  recover,  when  his  master  is 
fast  asleep,  to  use  such  a  root,  or  such  a  root.  For  imagination  is  like  to 
work  better  upon  sleeping  men  than  men  awake ;  as  we  shall  show  when 
we  handle  dreams.  ...  It  is  certain  that  potions,  or  things  taken  into  the 
body;  incenses  and  perfumes  taken  at  the  nostrils;  and  ointments  of  some 
parts  do  naturally  work  upon  the  imagination  of  him  thattaketh  them."  .  . 
The  second  is  the  exposition  of  natural  dreams,  which  discovereth  the  state 
of  the  body  by  the  imaginations  of  the  mind."  —  Nat.  Hist  514. 

"  Act  IV.  Sc.  2.  —  Kimbolton. 
[Enter  Katherine,  Dowager,  sick;  led  between  Griffith  and  Patuejice.] 
Grif.    How  does  your  Grace  ? 

Kath.  O,  Griffith,  sick  to  death:  .  .  . 

Patience,  be  near  me  still;  and  set  me  lower: 


300  MACBETH.  —  VISIONS. 

I  have  not  long  to  trouble  thee.  —  Good  Griffith, 
Cause  the  musicians  play  me  that  sad  note 
I  nam'd  my  knell,  whilst  I  sit  meditating 
On  that  celestial  harmony  I  go  to. 

[Sad  and  solemn  music. 
Grif.    She  is  asleep :    Good  wench,  let 's  sit  down  quiet, 
For  fear  we  wake  her:  —  Softly,  gentle  Patience. 

The  Vision.  Enter,  solemnly  tripping  one  after  another,  six  Personages, 
clad  in  white  robes,  wearing  on  their  heads  garlands  of  bays,  and  golden  vizards 
on  their  faces ;  branches  of  bays,  or  palm,  in  their  hands.  They  first  congee 
unto  her,  and  then  dance ;  and  at  certain  changes,  the  first  two  hold  a  spare 
garland  over  her  head;  at  which  the  other  four  make  reverend  courtesies  ; 
then,  the  two  that  held  the  garland  deliver  the  same  to  the  other  next  tico,  who 
observe  the  same  order  in  their  changes,  and  holding  the  garland  over  her 
head.  Which  done,  they  deliver  the  same  garland  to  the  last  two,  who  likewise 
observe  the  same  order ;  at  which  (as  it  were  by  inspiration)  she  makes  in  her 
sleep  signs  of  rejoicing,  and  holdeth  up  her  hands  to  Heaven :  and  so  in  their 
dancing,  they  vanish,  carrying  the  garland  with  them.     The  music  continues. 

Kath.    Spirits  of  peace,  where  are  ye?    Are  ye  all  gone, 
And  leave  me  here  in  wretchedness  behind  ye  V 

Grif.    Madam,  we  are  here. 

Kath.  It  is  not  you  I  call  for. 

Saw  ye  none  enter  since  I  slept  ? 

Grif.  None,  madam, 

Kath.    No  ?    Saw  you  not,  even  now,  a  blessed  troop 
Invite  me  to  a  banquet,  whose  bright  faces 
Cast  thousand  beams  upon  me  like  the  sun  ? 
They  promis'd  me  eternal  happiness, 
And  brought  me  garlands,  Griffith,  which  I  feel 
I  am  not  worthy  yet  to  wear:  I  shall 
Assuredly. 

Grif.    I  am  most  joyful,  madam,  such  good  dreams 
Possess  your  fancy." 

And  so,  the  end  turns  upon  dreams  as  in  the  extracts  from 
Bacon.  Here,  as  in  many  other  instances,  the  similitude 
is  more  in  the  idea  and  matter  than  in  the  language  ;  and 
that  similitude  is  just  such  as  would  be  most  likely  to  occur, 
if  we  suppose  the  author  to  have  been  engaged,  at  the  same 
time,  upon  a  scientific  study  of  the  same  subjects.  There 
should  be  strong  resemblance  without  absolute  identity ; 
and  that  we  have,  in  the  sick  person,  attended  by  a  servant, 
in  a  weak  and  passive  state  of  body  and  somewhat  exalted 
state  of  mind,  dwelling  on  the  celestial  harmonies,  the  vision 


MACBETH.  —  VISIONS.  301 

producing  the  effect  on  the  imagination  by  the  influence  of 
the  garlands  and  dancing,  perfumes  taken  at  the  nostrils, 
and  the  tripping  performances,  as  carefully  directed ;  not 
roots,  this  time,  but  branches  of  bays,  or  palm ;  the  im- 
agination more  easily  worked  upon,  sleeping  than  awake  ; 
and  the  conclusion,  in  both  cases,  running  upon  dreams 
that  possess  the  fancy. 

It  is  certain  that  Bacon  was  at  work  upon  this  portion 
of  the  great  Instauration,  and  kindred  topics  were  in  his 
mind,  during  the  period  in  which  these  particular  plays 
were  produced.  And  it  may  be  said  to  be  true,  generally, 
(what  is  one  of  the  most  convincing  kinds  of  proof,)  that 
the  most  striking  parallel  passages  found  in  any  prose  work 
of  his,  the  date  of  which  can  be  approximately  fixed,  are 
more  especially  confined  to  one  or  two  plays,  which  must 
have  been  written,  and  were,  in  fact,  produced,  at  about  the 
same  time  at  which  that  particular  work  may  have  been, 
or  was  in  fact  written,  though  not  published  until  some 
years  afterwards,  as  is  true  in  some  instances. 

Still  another  example  may  be  cited  from  the  "  Macbeth." 
Compare  the  words  and  topics  of  the  following  sentences, 
which  are  to  be  found  within  the  compass  of  two  or  three 
pages  in  the  Natural  History,  touching  "  the  secret  virtue 
of  sympathy  and  antipathy," 1  with  the  witches'  incantation 
in  the  opening  of  the  fourth  act,  thus  :  — 

"  There  be  many  things  that  work  upon  the  spirits  of  man  by  secret 
sympathy  and  antipathy:  ...  tail  of  a  dog  or  cat;  .  .  .  the  flesh  of  the 
hedge-hog  is  said  to  be  a  great  drier  " :  — 

"  1  Witch.    Thrice  the  brinded  cat  hath  mew'd. 

2  W.    Thrice ;  and  once  the  hedge-pig  whin'd. 

3  W.    Harpier  cries,  —  'T  is  time,  't  is  time." 

"  The  blood-stone  good  for  bleeding  at  the  nose,  by  astriction  and  cooling 
of  the  spirits.  Query,  if  the  stone  taken  out  of  the  toad's  head  be  not  of  the 
like  virtue ;  for  the  toad  loveth  shade  and  coolness :  —  for  that  being  poison- 
ous themselves,  they  draw  the  venom  to  them  from  the  spirits  " :  — 

i  Nat.  Hist.,  §  964-998;  Works,  (Boston),  V.  149-157. 


802  MACBETH.  —  VISIONS. 

"  1  Witch.    Round  about  the  cauldron  go : 
In  the  poison'd  entrails  throw.  — 
Toad,  that  under  coldest  stone, 
Days  and  nights  hast  thirty-one 
Swelter'd  venom  sleeping  got, 
Boil  thou  first  i'  th'  charmed  pot. 

All.    Double,  double  toil  and  trouble; 
Fire  burn,  and  cauldron  bubble." 

"  The  writers  of  natural  magic  commend  the  wearing  of  the  spoil  of  a 
snake ;  .  .  .  The  writers  of  natural  magic  do  attribute  much  to  the  virtues 
that  come  from  the  parts  of  living  creatures ;  so  as  they  be  taken  from  them, 
the  creatures  remaining  still  alive ;  as  if  the  creatures  still  living  did  infuse 
some  hnmateriate  virtue  and  vigour  into  the  part  severed  " :  — 

"  2  W.    Fillet  of  a  fenny  snake 
In  the  cauldron  boil  and  bake : 
Eye  of  newt,  and  toe  of  frog, 
Wool  of  bat,  and  tongue  of  dog, 
Adder's  fork,  and  blind-worm's  sting, 
Lizard's  leg,  and  owlet's  wing, 
For  a  charm  of  powerful  trouble, 
Like  a  hell-broth,  boil  and  bubble. 

All.    Double,  double  toil  and  trouble ; 
Fire  burn,  and  cauldron  bubble." 

"  The  trochisk  of  vipers,  — .  .  .  the  guts  or  skin  of  a  wolf,  a  beast  of  great 
edacity ;  —  Mummy  hath  great  force  in  staunching  of  blood ;  — ...  the 
white  of  an  egg,  or  blood,  mingled  with  salt  water,  — ...  for  all  life  hath 
a  sympathy  with  salt,  — .  .  .  rings  of  sea-horse  teeth,  — .  .  .  henbane, 
hemlock.  —  The  ointment  that  witches  use  is  reported  to  be  made  of  the 
fat  of  children  digged  out  of  their  graves,  — ...  the  moss  upon  the  skull 
of  a  dead  man  unburied.  —  So  to  procure  easy  travails  of  women,  .  .  .  the 
toad-stone  likewise  helpeth." 

"  Pius  Quintus,  at  the  very  time  when  that  memorable  victory  was  won 
by  the  Christians  against  the  Turks,  at  the  naval  battle  of  Lepanto,  being 
then  hearing  of  causes  in  the  consistory,  brake  off  suddenly,  and  said  to 
those  about  him,  It  is  now  more  time  we  should  give  thanks  to  God  for  the 
great  victory  he  has  granted  us  against  the  Turks:  it  is  true  that  victory 
had  a  sympathy  with  his  spirit ;  for  it  was  merely  his  work  to  conclude 
that  league.  It  may  be  that  revelation  was  divine :  but  what  shall  we  say 
'then  to  a  number  of  examples  amongst  the  Grecians  and  Romans?  where 
the  people  being  in  theatres  at  plays,  have  had  news  of  victories  and  over- 
throws some  few  days  before  any  messenger  could  come."  —  Essay. 

"  3  W.    Scale  of  dragon,  tooth  of  wolf; 
Witches'  mummy;  maw  and  gulf 
Of  the  ravin'd  salt-sea  shark; 
Root  of  hemlock,  digg'd  i'  th'  dark ; 


PARALLELISMS.  303 

Liver  of  blaspheming  Jew ; 
Gall  of  goat,  and  slips  of  yew 
Sliver' d  in  the  moon's  eclipse: 
Nose  of  Turk,  and  Tartar's  lips; 
Finger  of  birth-strangled  babe 
Ditch-deliver'd  by  a  drab, 
Make  the  gruel  thick  and  slab : 
Add  thereto  a  tiger's  chaudron, 
For  the  ingredients  of  our  cauldron. 

All.    Double,  double  toil  and  trouble ; 
Fire  burn,  and  cauldron  bubble." 

"  The  heart  of  an  ape  is  said  to  make  dreams  also.  .  .  .  The  skin  of  a 
sheep  devoured  by  a  wolf  moveth  itching;  ...  by  working  upon  the  spirit 
of  some  that  cometh  to  the  witch  " :  — 

"  2  W.    Cool  it  with  a  baboon's  blood, 
Then  the  charm  is  firm  and  good. 


2  W.    By  the  pricking  of  my  thumbs, 
Something  wicked  this  way  comes :  — 
Open  locks,  whoever  knocks. 

[Enter  Macbeth." 

So,  in  the  "  As  You  Like  It,"  we  have  these  lines :  — 

"  Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity; 
Which,  like  the  toad,  ugly  and  venomous, 
Wears  yet  a  precious  jewel  in  his  head."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

And  certainly,  it  is  not  possible  to  doubt  that  this  charm 
was  compounded,  concocted,  and  constructed  out  of  this 
same  quarry  of  materials ;  nor  is  it  at  all  probable,  if  not 
quite  impossible,  that  William  Shakespeare  could  ever  have 
had  access  to  it. 

§  6.   PARALLELISMS. 

These  parallelisms  in  topics  and  whole  passages,  in  sub- 
ject, idea,  and  language,  may  furnish  the  most  effective  and 
satisfactory  kind  of  proof ;  for  it  is  evidence  that  appeals  to 
the  most  common  standard  of  judgment.  Higher  and  more 
general  grounds  of  argument  may  be  still  more  conclusive 
to  minds  that  are  able  to  appreciate  them.  To  all  such  any 
further  exhibition  of  this  kind  of  evidence  might  seem  to 
be  superfluous ;  but  the  demonstration  must  be  made  as 


304  PARALLELISMS. 

near,  perfect,  and  complete  as  possible,  that  every  one  may 
be  satisfied.  That  this  argument  may  have  full  force,  all 
possibility  of  plagiarism,  borrowing,  or  imitation,  must  be 
excluded.  In  the  several  instances  which  have  already 
been  stated,  the  fact  has  been  made  to  appear,  as  it  will  be 
in  many  more,  that  the  works  of  Bacon,  in  which  the  most 
evident  parallelism  is  found,  were  not  printed  until  after 
the  plays  in  question  had  appeared ;  and  this,  of  course, 
excludes  the  possibility  that  Shakespeare  could  have  drawn 
from  Bacon,  in  these  instances ;  and  this  is  enough  effec- 
tually to  establish  the  entire  proposition.  On  the  other 
hand,  is  it  possible  that  Bacon  may  have  borrowed  from 
William  Shakespeare  ?  The  very  question  would  seem  to 
be  next  to  absurd.  But  let  us  look  at  the  matter.  Francis 
Bacon  had  been  four  years  at  the  bar,  and  was  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  when  William  Shakespeare  is  supposed  to 
have  come  to  London,  and  joined  the  theatre  as  an  under- 
actor,  in  1586-7,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two.  He  was  already 
a  finished  scholar,  well  stored  in  all  the  learning  of  the 
ancients,  or  of  his  own  time,  an  accomplished  master  in 
English  and  Latin  composition,  a  skilful  observer  and  in- 
terpreter of  Nature  in  all  her  departments,  familiar  with  the 
manners  of  the  highest  society,  and,  in  a  word,  well-furnished 
at  all  points  for  a  beginning  in  this  kind  of  writing ;  and  to 
suppose  such  a  man  would  have  any  occasion  to  borrow 
resources  of  thought,  art,  style,  manner,  or  diction,  from  an 
unlearned  under-actor  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  would  be  to 
conceive  it  possible  for  a  rich  man  to  be  made  richer  by 
plundering  a  beggar.  So,  when,  as  in  the  story  of  the 
soothsayer,  the  story  of  Julius  Caesar  and  the  crown,  Aris- 
totle's morals,  the  doctrine  of  witches,  incantations,  visions, 
prophecy,  feigned  history,  and  the  immateriate  virtues  and 
secret  sympathies  and  antipathies  of  things,  in  metaphysical 
ideas  and  scientific  knowledge,  in  acquaintance  with  men 
and  manners,  with  philosophy,  history,  and  poetry,  and  in 
acquisitions  of  every  sort,  we  find  more  in  Bacon  than  is  to 


PARALLELISMS.  305 

be  found  in  the  plays  themselves,  and  more  than  William 
Shakespeare  could  possibly  have  possessed,  together  with 
genius,  art,  wit,  ability,  and  leisure  enough  to  make  the 
necessary  use  of  his  own  in  the  way  that  pleased  him  best,  it 
becomes  utterly  preposterous  to  imagine  he  was  a  plagiarist 
or  an  imitator  of  Shakespeare. 

Again,  in  several  instances,  as  in  the  case  of  the  "  Macbeth  " 
and  the  "Antony  and  Cleopatra"  as  compared  with  the 
Natural  History  and  the  Intellectual  Globe,  the  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet "  compared  with  the  Fables  of  Cupid  and  Nemesis, 
the  "  Comedy  of  Errors"  and  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream" 
compared  with  the  Masques,  and  many  others,  considering 
the  dates  of  publication  and  approximate  times  of  composi- 
tion, it  is  plain  that  the  author  must  have  been  engaged 
upon  the  corresponding  works,  at  about  the  same  times,  with 
scarcely  a  possibility  of  plagiarism  either  way  ;  and  as  more 
is  found  in  Bacon's  works  than  in  the  plays  where  the 
resemblances  are  greatest,  it  is  a  necessary  conclusion,  not 
only  that  Bacon  did  not  borrow  from  Shakespeare,  nor 
Shakespeare  from  him,  otherwise  than  as  Shakespeare  was 
Bacon  himself,  but  also,  that  he  was  himself  the  author  of 
both  the  poetry  and  the  prose. 

These  works  appeared  from  time  to  time,  almost  yearly, 
during  a  period  of  twenty-five  years  or  more  ;  and  it  would 
be  idle  to  imagine  a  continuous  plagiarism  of  one  another 
upon  another,  or  a  reciprocal  exchange  between  them,  for 
such  a  length  of  time,  in  works  of  the  highest  order  like 
these.  In  both  writings,  the  mode  of  thinking  and  the 
style  of  composition  are  incorporate  with  the  man,  and 
completely  sui  generis.  No  writer  of  the  time,  neither  Ben 
Jonson,  nor  Marlow,  nor  Raleigh,  nor  Wotton,  Donne,  or 
Herbert,  whose  poetry  approaches  nearest,  perhaps,  of  any 
of  that  age  to  the  Shakespearean  vein,  can  be  brought  into 
any  doubtful  comparison  with  this  author.  Nor  are  these 
similitudes  any  merely  borrowed  gems  set  in  a  meaner  gold. 
And  what  should  be  finally  conclusive  of  the  whole  matter 
20 


306  PARALLELISMS. 

is,  the  profound  reflection,  with  which  the  learned  writer 
who,  in  fact,  first  made  this  discovery,  sums  up  her  verj 
luminous  and  eloquent  view  of  the  subject,  namely,  that  ir 
him,  we  find  "  one,  at  least,  furnished  for  that  last  anc 
ripest  proof  of  learning,  which  the  drama,  in  the  unmiracu 
lous  order  of  human  development,  must  constitute ;  thai 
proof  of  it,  in  which  philosophy  returns  from  history,  fron 
its  noblest  fields,  and  from  her  last  analysis,  with  the  secrei 
and  the  material  of  the  creative  synthesis,  with  the  secrei 
and  material  of  art."  1 

The  following  instances  of  striking  resemblances,  in  par 
ticular  words  and  phrases,  lying  beyond  the  range  of  accl 
dental  coincidence,  or  common  usage,  and  not  elsewhere 
made  the  subject  of  special  comment,  have  been  collated 
and  will  be  given  here  in  one  body,  by  way  of  sample  of  the 
innumerable  similitudes  and  identities  that  everywhere  per- 
vade these  works  ;  for  we,  too,  "  will  undertake,  by  collating 
the  styles,  to  judge  whether  he  were  the  author  or  no." 


"  God  hath  framed  the  mind  of  man  as  a  mirrour  or  glass,  capable  of  th< 
image  of  the  universal  world."  —  Adv.,  II.  9. 2 

"  Ton  do  carry  two  glasses  or  mirrours  of  State."  —  Speech,  VII.  259. 

"  If  there  be  a  mirrour  in  the  world  worthy  to  hold  men's  eyes,  it  is  thai 
country."  —  New  Atlantis,  II.  351. 

"  Give  me  leave  to  set  before  you  two  glasses,  such  as  certainly  the  like 
never  met  in  one  age ;  the  glass  of  France,  and  the  glass  of  England,  .  .  . 
And  my  lords,  I  cannot  let  pass,  but  in  these  glasses  which  I  speak  of,  .  .  . 
to  show  you  two  things."  —  Charge,  II.  {Phil.)  389. 

"  That  which  I  have  propounded  to  myself  is,  .  .  .  to  show  you  youi 
true  shape  in  a  glass,  .  .  .  one  made  by  the  reflection  of  your  own  words 
and  actions."  — Letter  to  Coke,  V.  403. 

—  "  whose  end,  both  at  the  first,  and  now,  was,  and  is,  to  hold,  as  'twere, 
the  mirrour  up  to  nature ;  to  show  virtue  her  own  feature,  scorn  her  own 
image,  and  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and  pressure."  — 
Ham.,  Act  HI.  Sc.  2. 

1  Delia  Bacon ;  Putnam's  Magazine,  Jan.  1856,  p.  19. 

2  The  references  by  figures  alone  are  to  Montagu's  Works  of  Bacon,  Lond., 
1825. 


PARALLELISMS.  307 

—  "  to  make  true  direction  of  him  his  semblable  is  his  mirrour."  —  Earn. 
"  Whose  wisdom  was  a  mirrour  to  the  wisest."  —  Hen.  VI 'II.,  Act  III.  Sc.  8. 

—  "  two  mirrours  of  his  princely  semblance."  —  Rich.  III.,  Act  III.  8c.  1. 
"  You  go  not,  till  I  set  you  up  a  glass 

Wherein  you  may  see  the  inmost  part  of  you."  —  Ham.,  Act  MI.  Sc.  i. 

"  Nor  feels  not  what  he  owes  but  by  reflexion."  —Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  III. 
Sc.  3. 


"  Good  Lord,  Madam,  how  wisely  and  aptly  can  you  speak  and  discern  of 
physic  ministered  to  the  body,  and  consider  not  that  there  is  the  like  occa- 
sion of  physic  ministered  to  the  mind."  —  Apology. 

—  "  the  particular  remedies  which  learning  doth  minister  to  all  the  dis- 
eases of  the  mind."  —  II.  82. 

"  Let  that  be  a  sleeping  honour  awhile  and  cure  the  Queen's  mind  in  that 
point."  —  Advice  to  Essex. 

"  Macb.  Cure  her  of  that : 

Can'st  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseas'dV  — 

Docl.  ....  Therein  the  patient 

Must  minister  to  himself. 

Macb.    Throw  physic  to  the  dogs,  I  '11  none  of  it" 

Macb.,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 


"  But  perhaps  you  will  ask  the  question  whether  it  be  not  better,  — ... 
Yet  it  is  a  greater  dignity  of  mind  to  bear  evils  by  fortitude  and  judgment, 
than  by  a  kind  of  absenting  and  alienation  of  the  mind  from  things  present 
to  things  future,  for  that  it  is  to  hope.  .  .  .  For  neither  is  there  always  mat- 
ter of  hope,  and  if  there  be,  yet  if  it  fail  but  in  part,  it  doth  wholly  over- 
throw the  constancy  and  resolution  of  the  mind;—  .  .  .  that  you  have  out 
of  a  watchful  and  strong  discourse  of  the  mind  set  down  the  better  success, 
...  so  that  this  be  a  work  of  the  understanding  and  judgment.  .  .  .  You 
have  not  dwelt  upon  the  very  muse  and  forethought  of  the  good  to  come." 
—  Med.  Sac.,  I.  69. 

"  He  did  now  more  seriously  think  of  the  world  to  come."  —  Hen.  VII. 

—  "  Owing  to  the  premature  and  forward  haste  of  the  understanding,  and 
its  jumping  or  flying  to  generalities."  —  Nov.  Org.,  §  64. 

"  And  first  of  all  it  is  more  than  time  that  there  were  an  end  and  surcease 
made  of  this  unmodest  and  deformed  manner  of  writing,  whereby  matter 
of  religion  is  handled  in  the  style  of  the  stage."  —  Church  Contr.,  YTI.  32. 

"  Ham.    To  be,  or  not  to  be ;  that  is  the  question :  — 
Whether  't  is  nobler  in  the  mind  — .... 
And  makes  us  rather  bear  the  ills  we  have, 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of  ? 


308  PARALLELISMS. 

Thus  conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all ; 

And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 

Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought" 

Ham.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 
—  "  and  catch, 
With  his  surcease,  success ;  but  that  this  blow 
Might  be  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  here, 
But  here,  upon  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time,  — 
We  'd  jump  the  life  to  come.  —  But,  in  these  cases, 
We  still  have  judgment  here."  —  Macb.,  Act  I  Sc.  7. 


—  "  the  advancement  of  unworthy  persons."  — Essay,  XV. 

"  —  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes."  —  Ham.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 


"  Cardan  saith  that  weeping  and  sighing  are  the  chief  purgers  of  grief."  — 
Sp.Yll.  306. 

"  If  I  could  purge  it  of  two  sorts  of  errors,  whereof  the  one  with  frivolous 
disputations,  confutations,  and  verbosities,  the  other  with  blind  experiments, 
and  auricular  traditions  and  impostures,  hath  committed  so  many  spoils." 
—  Letter,  1591. 

"  When  the  times  themselves  are  set  upon  waste  and  spoil."  —  XIII.  269. 

— "  let 's  purge  this  choler."  —  Rich.  II,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

"  The  king  is  not  at  the  palace ;  he  is  gone  aboard  a  new  ship  to  purge 
melancholy,  and  air  himself."  —  Win.  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  To  purge  him  of  that  humour."  —  Win.  Tale,  Act  II  Sc.  3. 

"  I  can  purge  myself  of  many."  —  1  Hen.  IV.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  We  shall  be  called  purgers."  — Jul.  Cos.,  Act  11.  Sc.  1. 

"  Are  burnt  and  purg'd  away."  —  Ham.,  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

"  And  make  Time's  spoils  despised  everywhere."  —  Sonnet  c. 

"  Run  reeking  o'er  the  lives  of  men,  as  if 
'T  were  a  perpetual  spoil."  —  Cor.,  Act  11.  Sc.  2. 


"  For  this  giant  bestrideth  the  sea,  and  I  would  take  and  snare  him  by 
the  foot  on  this  side."  —  Duels,  "VI.  123. 

"  Why,  man,  he  doth  bestride  the  narrow  world 
Like  a  Colossus."  — Jul.  Cces.,  Act  1.  Sc.  2. 

"His  legs  bestrid  the  ocean."  —  Ant.  and  Cleo.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 


"  Nevertheless,  since  I  do  perceive  that  this  cloud  hangs  over  the  House." 
—  Speech,  VI.  15. 


PARALLELISMS.  3Q9 

"  And  all  the  clouds  that  lower'd  upon  our  house."  —  Kick.  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.l. 

—  "  times  answerable,  like  waters  after  a  tempest,  rail  of  working  and 
swelling,  though  without  extremity  of  storm."  —  II.  110. 

—  "  secret  swelling  of  seas  before  a  tempest."  —  Essay,  XV. 

—  "  an  unusual  swelling  in  the  state."  —  Fel  Q.  E&z.,  in.  472. 

—  "  in  such  a  swelling  season."  —  Hen.  VII. 

—  "to  such  a  true  and  swelling  greatness."  —  Letter. 

—  "  adorned  and  swelling."  —  I.  269. 

"  And  all  things  answerable  to  this  portion."  —  Tarn.  Shrew,  Act  II.  Be.  1. 
"  Why  now,  blow  wind;  swell,  billow;  and  swim,  bark  ! 
The  storm  is  up,  and  all  is  on  the  hazard."  —Jul  Cass.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 
— "  the  swelling  scene."  —  Hen.  V.,  Act  I.  Cher. 
—  "  upon  the  swelling  tide."  —  K.  John,  Act  II.  8c.  1. 
"  The  ocean  swells  not  so  as  Aaron  storms."  —  Tit.  And.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 
"  The  venomous  malice  of  my  swelling  heart."  —  TiL  And.,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 
"  Which  thou  pourest  down  from  these  swelling  heavens."  —  1  Hen.  IV., 
Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  to  the  swelling  act  of  the  imperial  theme."  —  Macb.,  Act  I.  Sc  3. 

[A  favorite  word  in  both.]  y 

—  "as  if  one  should  learn  to  weigh,  or  to  measure,  or  to  paint  the  wind." 
Adv.,  II. 

"  That  tears  shall  drown  the  wind."  —  Macb.,  Act  I.  Sc.  7. 

"  To  gild  refined  gold,  to  paint  the  lily."  —  K.  John,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

"  I  set  down  reputation,  because  of  the  peremptory  tides  and  currents  it 
hath,  which  if  they  be  not  taken  in  their  due  time,  are  seldom  recovered." 
—  Adv.,U.  287. 

"In  the  third  place,  I  set  down  character  and  reputation,  the  rather 
because  they  have  certain  tides  and  seasons,  which  if  they  be  not  taken  in 
due  time,  are  difficult  to  be  recovered,  it  being  extremely  hard  to  restore  a 
falling  reputation."  —  De  Aug. 

"  There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune ; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows,  and  in  miseries. 
On  such  a  full  sea  are  we  now  afloat ; 
And  we  must  take  the  current  when  it  serves, 
Or  lose  our  ventures."  — Tul.  Ges.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 


310  PARALLELISMS. 

—  "in  the  jaws  of  death."  —  New  Atl,  II.  333. 

"Even  in  the  jaws  of  danger  and  of  death."  —  K.  John,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 


"  Another  cause  may  be,  because  all  kind  of  heat  dilates  and  extends  the 

air, which  produces  this  breeze  as  the  sun  goes  forward 

Seeing  progression  is  always  from  some  certain  place  or  bound,  inquire  dil- 
igently, or  as  well  as  thou  cans't,  concerning  the  place  of  the  first  begin- 
ning, and,  as  it  were,  the  spring  of  any  wind For  the  wheeling  of 

the  air  continues  also  in  the  night,  but  the  heat  of  the  sun  does  not,  — .... 
Surely,  such  winds  are  tired,  as  it  were,  that  can  scarcely  break  through  the 

thickness  of  the  night  air; and  thence,  thunders  and  lightnings 

and  storms,  with  falling  of  broken  clouds."  —  Nat.  Hist,  of  Winds. 

"SoW.    As  whence  the  sun  'gins  his  reflexion 
Ship-wrecking  storms  and  direful  thunders  break ; 
So  from  that  spring,  whence  comfort  seem'd  to  come, 
Discomfort  swells."  —  Macb.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


"  Another  precept  of  this  knowledge  is,  to  imitate  nature."  —  Adv.,  II.  288. 

—  "  and  be  not  carried  away  with  a  whirlwind  or  tempest  of  ambition." 

Ibid.  291. 
"  the  giddy  agitation  and  whirlwind  of  argument." 

—  "to  the  use,  and,  as  I  may  term  it,  sen-ice  of  my  Lord  of  Essex." 

II.  248. 
"  We  have  taken  the  loud  and  vocal,  and,  as  I  may  call  it,  streperous 
carriage."  —  VII.  474. 
"  Hominis  non  est  apes  imitari."  —  Be  Ira,  XII.  374. 
"Imitari  is  nothing."  —  Love's  Labor  's  Lost,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  they  imitated  humanity  so  abominably, that  you  o'erstep 

not  the  modesty  of  nature, for  in  the  very  torrent,  tempest,  and  (as 

I  may  say)  whirlwind  of  your  passion."  —  Ham.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 


—  "  that  afterwards  kindled  such  a  fire  and  combustion." 

Henry  VII,  III.  126. 

"  As  dry  combustious  matter  is  to  fire."  —  Ven.  and  Adon. 
—  "  for  kindling  such  a  combustion  in  the  state." 

Henry  VIII.,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 


—  "transported  to  the  mad  degree  of  love."  —  Essay  of  Love. 

"  That  I  essentially  am  not  in  madness, 
But  mad  in  craft."  —  Ham.,  Act  J II.  Sc.  4. 

"  You  are  transported  by  calamity 
Thither,  where  more  attends  you."  —  Cor.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


PARALLELISMS.  311 

"  And  lastly,  to  discontinue  altogether."  —  II.  132. 

—  "  and  so  either  break  it  altogether,  or  defer  any  other  delay." 

Letter,  XII.  245. 

—  "  let  a  man  either  avoid  the  occasion  altogether."  — II.  133. 

"  0,  reform  it,  altogether."  —  Ham.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"Not  altogether,  sir."  — Lear,  Act  II.  8c.  4. 

"  This  is  not  altogether  fool,  my  lord."  —  Lear,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

"  I  perceive  it  was  not  altogether  your  brother's  evil  disposition." 

Lear,  Act  III.  8c.  5. 

—  "  indisposed  to  actions  of  great  peril  and  motion."  —  Bacon. 

"  Enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment."  — Ham.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 


"  But  when  matter  comes  to  be  censured  or  decreed."  —  Wisd.  of  the  Anc., 
III.  94. 

—  "it  was  perused,  weighed,  censured,  altered,  and  made  almost  a  new 
writing."  —  Apol,  VI.  275. 

[A  word  in  the  use  of  the  Star-Chamber,  meaning  to 
adjudge.~\ 

"Edm.    How,  my  lord,  I  may  be  censured." — Lear,  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 
"  Censure  me  in  your  wisdom, 
And  awake  your  senses  that  you  may  the  better  judge." 

Jul.  Caesar,  Act  111.8c.  2. 
—  "  we  will  both  our  judgments  join 
In  censure  of  his  seeming."  — Ham.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  Hath  censur'd  him 
Already;  and,  as  I  hear,  the  provost  hath 
A  warrant  for  his  execution."  —  Aleas.  for  Meas.,  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 


"  But  enough  of  these  toys."  —  Essay. 

"  But  these  things  are  but  toys."  —  Letter,  XII.  292.  / 

[A  word  much  used  in  both.] 
"  And  such  like  toys  as  these."  —  Richard  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 
—  "shall  we  fall  foul  for  toys."  —2  Henry  IV.,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 
"  These  antique  fables,  nor  these  fairy  toys." 

Mid.  NiyhVs  Dream,  Act  V.  Be.  h 


»  the  recreations  of  my  other  studies."  —  Letter. 

«  gome  lease  of  quick  revenue."  —  Letter  to  Burgh. 

"  But  is  there  no  quick  recreation  granted  ?  "  —  Play. 


312  PARALLELISMS. 

"  There  was  much  ado  and  a  great  deal  of  world ;  but  this  matter  of 
pomp,  which  is  heaven  to  some  men,  is  hell  to  me,  or  purgatory,  at  least."  — 
Letter  to  Buck.,  1617. 

—  "I  am  in  purgatory."  — Letter. 

—  "all  the  vain  pomp  and  outward  shows  of  honour."  —  Char,  of  Cms. 

"  That  I  have  much  ado  to  know  myself."  —  Mer.  of  Ven.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 
"  What  a  deal  of  world 
I  wander  from  the  jewels  that  I  love."  — Rich.  II.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

—  "  such  a  deal  of  wonder  is  broken  out."  —  Win.  Tale,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  For  there  will  be  a  world  of  water  shed."  —  1  Hen.  IV.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 
"  I  should  venture  purgatory  for  't."  —  Oth.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

—  "  purgatory,  torture,  hell  itself."  —  Rom.  and  Juliet,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"Vain  pomp  arid  glory  of  this  world,  I  hate  thee." 

Henry  VIII.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 


"Illuminate  the  eyes  of  our  mind."  —  Prayer,  VII.  6. 
"  The  sun,  the  eye  of  the  world."  —  Ibid.  107. 

—  "  the  eye  of  this  kingdom."  —  New  All. 

"  For  everything  depends  upon  fixing  the  mind's  eye  steadily." 

Intr.  to  Nov.  Org. 

—  "  mine  eye  is  my  mind."  —  Sonnet. 

"  In  my  mind's  eye,  Horatio."  —  Hamlet,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


"  This  is  the  only  justification  which  I  will  use."  —  Subm.  XVI.  352. 

"  I  will  a  round  unvarnish'd  tale  deliver, 

This  only  is  the  witchcraft  I  have  used."  —  Othello,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 


"  The  states  of  Italy,  they  be  like  little  quillets  of  freehold." 

Dis.  ofEliz.,YU.  163. 

"That  it  was  no  mystery  or  quiddity  of  the  common  law." 

Arraign.,  VI.  359. 

"  This  construction  is  no  mystery  or  quiddity  of  law."  —  Speech. 

"  That  hath  been  the  sconce  and  fort  of  all  Europe."  — Dis.,  VII.  164. 

"  Why  may  not  that  be  the  skull  of  a  lawyer  ?  Where  be  his  quiddits, 
now,  his  quiHets,  his  cases,  his  tenures,  and  his  tricks  ?  why  does  he  suffer 
this  rude  knave  to  knock  him  about  the  sconce  with  a  dirty  shovel,  and  will 
not  tell  him  of  his  action  of  battery?  "  —  Hamlet,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 


"  For  opening  I  commend  beads  or  pieces  of  the  roots  of  Cardnus  bene- 
dictus  also  "  —  Nat.  Hist,  §  963. 

"  To  use  ale  with  a  little  enula  campana,  germander,  Carduus,  sage,  &c, 
to  beget  a  robust  health."  —  Med.  Rem. 


PARALLELISMS.  813 

— "  spodium,  hartshorn,  frankincense,  dried  bull's  pistle,  gum  tragacaifth.-" 

Phys.  Bern. 

—  "  succory,  liverwort,  wormwood,  fennel-root,  hart's  tongue,  daffbdfTry, 

Indian  nard,  holy  thistle,  camomile,  rue,  — cordials,  rosemary,  rind 

of  citron,  amber,  balm,  pimpernel,  cardamon, flowers  of  heliotrope, 

penny-royal,  seed  of  nettle,  sesamum, olibanum,  civet,  juniper, 

fat  of  deer,  thyme,  marigold, sweet  marjoram,  violets,  mallows, 

fennel-seeds,  &c."  —  Med.  Rem. 

[The  chapters  of  the  Nat  Hist  are  called  "  centuries."'] 

"  Get  you  some  of  this  distill'd  Carduus 

Benedictus, it  is  the  only  thing  for  a  qualm." 

Much  Ado.,  Act  III.  8c.  4. 
"  Fal.    You  dried  neat's  tongue,  bull's  pizzle,  you  stockfish." 

1  Henry,  Act  IV.  Sc  4. 

—  "  purge  thick  amber  and  plumb-tree  gum."  —  Ham.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  eats  conger  and  fennel."  — 2  Henry  IV. 

"  When  daffodils  begin  to  peer."  —  Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

—  "nettles  of  India."—  Twelfth  Night,  Act  II.  Sc.  5. 

—  "  sow  it  with  nettle-seed."  —  Tempest,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 
— "  instead  of  oil  and  balm." —  Troi.  and  Ores.,  Act  I. 

"  For  you  there 's  rosemary  and  rue."  —  Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  There 's  fennel  for  you, there 's  rue, there  's  rose- 
mary." —  Hamlet,  Act  IV.  Sc.  5. 

"And  Peter  Turf  and  Henry  Pimpernel, 
And  twenty  more  such  names  as  these, 
Which  never  were,  nor  no  man  ever  saw." 

Tarn.  Sh.  Mr.  II. 

"  With  hardocks,  hemlock,  nettles,  cuckoo-flowers, 
Darnel,  and  all  the  idle  weeds  that  grow 
In  our  sustaining  corn  —  a  century  send  forth." 

Lear,  Act  IV.  Sc.  4. 

—  "  crow-flowers,  nettles,  daisies."  —  Henry  IV.,  Sc.  7. 

—  "  sesa ! "  —  Lear,  Act  III.  Sc.  4,  6. 

—  "  lavender,  mints,  savory,  marjoram; 
The  marigold  that  goes  to  bed  "  — 

Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  Give  the  word.    Sweet  marjoram."— Lear,  Act  IV.  Sc.  6. 


"  Whereby  concealed  treasures  shall  be  brought  into  use  by  the  industry 
of  converted  penitents,  whose  wretched  carcases  the  impartial  laws  have, 
or  shall,  dedicate,  as  untimely  feasts,  to  the  worms  of  the  earth,  in  whose 


314  PARALLELISMS. 

womb  these  mineral  riches  must  ever  be  buried,  as  lost  abortions,  unless  he 
made  the  active  medicines  to  deliver  them."  —  Phys.  Rem.,  VII.  215. 

"  Cor.  ■  —  Whose  bones  I  prize 

As  the  dead  carcases  of  unburied  men."  —  Cor.,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

—  "  Macduff  was  from  his  mother's  womb 
Untimely  ripp'd."  — Macb.,  Act  V.  Sc.  7. 

"  Abortive  be  it,  prodigious,  and  untimely." 

Rich.  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  food  for  worms."  — 1  Hen.  IV.,  Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

"  a  certain  convocation  of  pobtic  worms  are  e'en  at  him." 

Ham.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 
"  Thou  elvish-marked,  abortive,  rioting  hag." 

Rich.  III.,  Act  I.  8c.  3. 
"  In  the  deep  bosom  of  the  ocean  buried." 

Rich.  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


"  If  we  simply  looked  to  the  fabric  of  the  world."  — XII.  73. 

"  For  by  this  unchangeable  way,  my  lords,  have  I  prepared  to  erect  the 
academical  fabric  of  this  island's  Solomon's  House,  modelled  in  my  New 
Atlantis."  —  Phys.  Rems.,  VII. 

—  "  relations  of  harmony  to  the  fabric  and  system  of  the  universe."  — 
XV.  200. 

—  "  the  conformation  and  fabric  of  the  universe."  —  Nov.  Org.,  II.  47. 

—  "  seeing  that  both  the  matter  and  fabric  of  the  world  are  most  truly  re- 
ferred to  a  Creator."  —  Wis.  of  the  Anc. 

—  "  so  to  mingle  the  elements  as  may  conserve  the  fabric."  —  Sp.,  VII. 
429. 

"  You  may  as  well 
Forbid  the  sea  for  to  obey  the  moon, 
As,  or  by  oath  remove,  or  counsel,  shake 
The  fabric  of  his  folly."  —  Winter's  Tale,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

"  When  it  stands  against  a  falling  fabric."  —  Cor.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"  And  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-cap'd  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  that  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve."  —  Temp.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 


—  "to  the  king's  infinite  honour."  —  VII.  341. 

—  "and  a  finite  creature  shall  possess  an  infinite  happiness."  —  Para- 
doxes, VII.  27. 

—  "  the  infinite  flight  of  birds."  —  New  Ail.,  II.  345. 


PARALLELISMS.  315 

—  "  hath  cost  such  an  infinite  deal  of  blood  and  treasure  of  our  realm  of 
England."— VII.  195. 

—  "  sweet  travelling  through  the  universal  variety." 

Masque,  XIII.  16. 

—  "  but  her  favour  infinite."  —  Gent,  of  Ver.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  purchased  at  an  infinite  rate."  —  Mer.  Wives,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  these  fellows  of  infinite  tongue."  —  Hen.  V.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  nor  custom  stale  her  infinite  variety." 

Ant.  and  Cleo.  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  how  infinite  in  faculties."  —  Ham.,  Act  II.  Sc  2. 
— "  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest."  —  Ham.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  discovery  of  the  infinite  flatteries."  —  Tim.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  She  hath  pursued  conclusions  infinite 

Of  easy  ways  to  die."  —  Ant.  and  Cleo.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  In  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy, 

A  little  I  can  read."  —  Ant.  and  Cleo.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

"  Gratiano  speaks  an  infinite  deal  of  nothing,  more  than  any  man  in  all 
Venice."  —  Mer.  of  Ven.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


"  But  to  our  children  raise  it  many  a  stage, 

That  all  the  world  to  thee  may  glory  give."  —  Psalm,  VII.  103. 

"  Or  that  the  frame  was  up  of  earthly  stage."  —  lb.  101. 

"  While  your  life  is  nothing  but  a  continued  acting  upon  a  stage." 

Masque,  XIII.  121. 
—  "  While  states  and  empires  pass  many  periods."  —  lb.  116. 

"  All  the  world  's  a  stage, 

And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players: 

And  one  man  in  his  time  plays  many  parts." 

As  You  Like  It,  Act  II.  Sc.  7. 


"  Howsoever  I  be  frail  and  partake  of  the  abuses  of  the  times."  —  Letter  V 
to  the  King. 

—  "  for  the  poor  abuses  of  the  times  want  countenance."  —  1  Hen.  IV.,  * 
Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


"  All  as  the  chaff,  which  to  and  fro 

Is  toss'd  at  mercy  of  the  wind."  —  Psalm,  VII.  98. 

"  He  is  often  toss'd  and  shaken."  —  Psalm. 

u  The  word,  the  bread  of  life,  they  toss  up  and  down." 

a.  Con.  VII.  56. 

"  He  tosseth  his  thoughts  more  easily."—  Essay. 


316  PARALLELISMS. 

—  "to  command  down  the  winds  of  malicious   and  seditious  rumours 
wherewith  men's  conceits  may  have  been  tossed  to  and  fro."  — Jud.  Proc. 

"  Strives  in  his  little  world  of  man  to  outscorn 

The  to-and-fro  conflicting  wind  and  rain."  —  Lear,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"After  late  tossing  on  the  breaking  seas." — Rich.  II.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  back  do  I  toss  their  treasures."  —  Lear,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

—  "  thou  hadst  been  toss'd  from  wrong."  —  Per.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

[A  word  much  used  by  both.] 


—  "the  great  storm  of  mighty  invasion,  not  of  preparation."  —  His. 
Elk.,  VII.  161. 

— "  never  stained  with  the  least  note  of  ambition  or  malice."  —  lb.  167. 

—  "with  strong  and  mighty  preparation."  — 1  Hen.  IV.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  this  most  dreadful  preparation."  —  Hen.  V.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  give  dreadful  note  of  preparation."  — Hen.  V.,  Act  IV.  Clior. 


*—  "  but  styed  up  in  the  schools  and  scholastic  cells."  —  Nat.  H,  IV.  122. 

—  "  and  here  you  sty  me 
On  this  hard  rock ;  while  you  do  keep  from  me 
The  rest  of  the  island."  —  Temp.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


— "  and  did  pour  into  man  the  intellectual  light  as  the  top  and  consum- 
mation of  thy  workmanship."  — Prayer,  VII.  9. 

—  "  for  princes  being  at  the  top  of  human  desires."  —  Adv. 

—  "  heing  at  the  top  of  all  worldly  bliss."  —  Hist.  Hen.  VII. 

"  And  wears  upon  his  hoty  brow  the  round 

And  top  of  sovereignty."  —  Macb.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  the  top  of  admiration."  —  Temp.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  like  eyases  that  cry  out  on  the  top  of  question." 

Ham.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

—  "competitor  in  top  of  all  design." — Ant.  and  Cleo.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 
"  If  He,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment." 

Mem.  for  Meas.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 


—  "  superstitions  and  fantastical  arts."  —  Adv.,  II. 

—  "  fantastical  estates."  —  Sp.,  XIII.  268. 

— "  but  a  certain  fantastical  and  notional  fire." 

Fab.  of  Cup.,  XV. 


PARALLELISMS.  317 

■"  according  to  the  fantastic  notions  of  Apollonius."  —  XV.  195. 
■ "  a  kind  of  fantastic  matter."  —  XV.  49. 

—  "  and  telling  her  fantastical  lies."  —  Oth.,  Act  II.  8c.  1. 

—  "  that  it  alone  is  high  fantastical."  —  Tw.  Night,  Act  I.  8c.  1. 
"  It  was  a  mad  fantastical  trick."— M eat.  for  Meat.,  Act  III.  8c.  2 
"  Are  ye  fantastical  ?  "  —  Macb.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

"Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven." 

Meat,  for  Meat.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  fantastic  garlands  did  she  make."  —  Ham.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  7. 


—  "  and  that  was  by  that  battle  quenched  and  ended."  —  Sp.,  VI.  232. 
"  This  is  the  cause  to  quench  all  good  spirits."  —  Letter. 

—  "  and  these  vapours  quench  the  spirits  by  degrees."  — Nat.  Hitt. 

"  What  hath  quenched  them."  —  Macb.,  Ad  II.  Sc.  2. 
"  And  quench'd  the  stellar  fires."  —  Lear,  III.  Sc.  7. 
—  "to  quench  mine  honour."  —  Ben.  VIII.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 


"  The  clouds  as  chariots  swift  do  scour  the  sky."  — Psalm,  VII.  105. 

—  "  and  so  this  traitor  Essex  made  his  colour  the  scouring  of  some  noble- 
men and  counsellors  from  her  Majesty's  favour."  — XVI.  n.  4  F. 

"  What  rhubarb,  senna,  or  what  purgative  drug 

Would  scour  these  English  hence  ?  "  —  Macb.,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

"  The  enemies'  drum  is  heard,  and  fearful  scouring 
Doth  choke  the  air  with  dust."  —  Tim.,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 


—  "  that  neither  beareth  the  greatness  of  alteration." 

Dis.,  VII.  150. 

—  "  but  that  is  an  altering  of  government."  —  Speech. 

—  "in  removing  or  alteration  of  servants."  —  VII.  65. 

—  "  the  alteration  of  religion."  — VII.  149. 

—  "to  make  so  main  an  alteration  in  the  Church."  — VII.  70. 

—  "  and  that  the  affrighted  globe 
Should  yawn  at  alteration."  —  Oth.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

"  He 's  full  of  alteration."  —  Lear,  Act  V.  Sc.  L 

"And  changes  fill  the  cup  of  alteration." 

2  Hen.  IV.,  Act  III.  8c.  h 

"  What  an  alteration  of  honour  has 
Desperate  want  made." —  Tim.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 


818  PARALLELISMS. 

"  The  Church  of  Rome, a  donative  cell  of  the  King  of  Spain."  — 

VII.  162. 

—  "  the  obscure  cells  of  solitary  monks."  —  Int.  of  Nat. 

—  "  that  part  of  learning  which  answereth  to  one  of  the  cells,  domicils, 
or  offices,  of  the  mind  of  man;  which  is  that  of  Memory."  — Adv.  II. 

—  "  bred  in  the  cells  of  gross  and  solitary  monks.''  —  Adv.,  II. 

"  Your  beadsman,  therefore,  addresseth  himself  to  your  Majesty  for  a  cell 
to  retire  to."  —  Letter  to  the  King. 

—  "  for  it  was  time  for  me  to  go  to  a  cell."  —  Letter. 

"  It  were  a  pretty  cell  for  my  fortune."  —  Letter. 

—  "  not  that  I  am  more  better 
Than  Prospero,  master  of  a  full  poor  cell."  —  Temp.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  it  is  a  cell  of  ignorance."  —  Cym.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  sweet  cell  of  virtue  and  nobility."  —  Tit.  And.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

"  O,  proud  death ! 
What  feast  is  toward  in  thine  eternal  cell?  " — Ham.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 


—  "  the  vapours  and  fumes  of  law."  —  Sp.,  VII.  268. 

—  "  and  these  vapours  quench  the  spirits  by  degrees."  —  Nat.  His. 

"  By  breaking  through  the  foul  and  ugly  mists 
Of  vapours,  that  did  seem  to  strangle  him." 

1  Hen.  IV.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


—  "  the  local  centre  and  heart  of  the  laws  of  this  realm." — Sp.,  VII.  268. 

—  "  this  foul  swine 
Lies  now  even  in  the  centre  of  this  isle." 

Rich.  III.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 


—  "  whereof  he  doubteth  not  they  have  heard  by  glimpses."  —  Sp.,  VII. 
310. 

—  "  the  fault  and  glimpse  of  newness." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 
"  That  thou,  dead  corse,  in  complete  steel 
Revisit'st  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon."  —  Ham.,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 


"  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  found  to  have  the  troubled  fountain  of  a  corrupt 
heart."  —  Letter,  1620. 

"  Our  pleasure  therefore  is,  who  are  the  head  and  fountain  of  justice  in 
our  dominions."  — VII.  327. 

"  For  there  are  certain  fountains  of  justice,  whence  all  civil  laws  are 
derived  but  as  streams."  —  Adv.,  II.  295. 


PARALLELISMS.  319 

-  "  his  majesty  who  is  the  fountain  of  grace."  —  Sp.,  VII.  252. 

-  "  the  ready  fountain  of  her  continual  benignity." 

Dit.  of  Eliz.  VII.  156. 
-"  the  most  sacred  fountain  of  all  grace  and  goodness."  —  VII.  6. 

-  "  the  spring-head  thereof  seemeth  to  me  not  to  have  been  visited." 

Ada. 
"  The  spring,  the  head,  the  fountain  of  your  blood 

Is  stopp'd. — 

Macd.  Your  royal  father 's  murder'd."  —  Macb.,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 
"  The  fountain  from  which  my  current  runs."  —  Oth.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 
—  "  the  fountain  of  our  love."  —  Tro.  and  Cress.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 


—  "  those  legions  of  spectres  and  worlds  of  shadows,  which  we  see  hov- 
ering over  all  the  expanse  of  the  philosophies."  —  Int.  Globe,  XII.  155. 

"  With  many  legions  of  strange  fantasies."  —  K.  John,  Act  V.  Sc.  7. 

—  "  she  hath  legions  of  angels."  —  Mer.  Wives,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

"  Methought  a  legion  of  foul  fiends."  —  Richard  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 


— "  move  always  and  be  carried  with  the  motion  of  your  first  mover, 
which  is  your  sovereign." —  Sp.,  VII.  259. 

[This  "  first  mover  "  comes  from  Aristotle,  who  treats  of 
the  Divine  Spirit,  or  absolute  cause  of  all  movement,  as  the 
"  First  Mover  "  (jvpunov  x'-vovv).'] 

"  0,  thou  eternal  Mover  of  the  heavens, 
Look  with  a  gentle  eye  upon  this  wretch ! " 

2  Hen.  VI.,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 


"  I  think  that  all  this  dust  is  raised  by  light  rumours  and  buzzes."  —  Speech. 

"  Suspicions  that  the  mind  of  itself  gathers  are  but  buzzes;  but  suspicions 
that  are  artificially  nourished  and  put  into  men's  heads  by  the  tales  and 
whisperings  of  others,  have  stings."  —  Essay,  XXXI. 

"  For  I  will  buzz  abroad  such  prophecies." 

3  Ilenry  VI,  Act  V.  Sc.  6. 

"  Glos.    Plots  have  I  laid,  inductions  dangerous, 
By  drunken  prophecies,  libels,  and  dreams, 
To  set  my  brother  Clarence,  and  the  king, 
In  deadly  hate  the  one  against  the  other." 

Richard  III.,  Act  I.  Sc.  L 


— "  well  studied  in  the  book  of  God's  word,  or  in  tho  book  of  God's 
works:  divinity  or  philosophy."  —  Adv.,  Spedd.,  VI.  97. 


§&0  PARALLELISMS. 

—  "  and  so  by  degrees  to  read  in  the  volumes  of  his  creatures." 

Int.  Nat.,  Ibid.  36. 

—  "  when  the  book  of  hearts  shall  be  opened."  — Letter,  1620. 

—  "  laying  before  us  two  books  or  volumes  to  study,  if  we  will  be  se- 
cured from  error;  first  the  Scriptures  revealing  the  will  of  God,  and  then 
the  creatures  expressing  his  power."  —  Int.  Nat.,  Ibid.  33. 

"  I'  the  world's  volume 
Our  Britain  seems  as  of  it,  but  not  in  it; 
In  a  great  pool,  a  swan's  nest."  —  Cymb.,  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

" Jul.    0,  Nature,  — 

Was  ever  book  containing  such  vile  matter 

So  fairly  bound?  "  —  Bom.  and  Juliet,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"In  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy, 

A  little  I  can  read."  —  Ant.  and  Cleo.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

"  Within  the  book  and  volume  of  my  brain." 

Hamlet,  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

"  The  leaf  of  barrage  hath  an  excellent  spirit  to  repress  the  fuliginous 

vapour  of  dusky  melancholy,  and  so  to  cure  madness ;  — it  will 

make  a  sovereign  drink  for  melancholy  passions."  —  Nat.  Hist.,  §  18. 

—  "  sable  colored  melancholy."  —  Love's  Labor 's  Lost,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

—  "  and  dusky  vapours  of  night."  —  1  Henry  VI.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  borne  with  black  vapours."  —  2  Henry  VI.,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

—  "  the  sovereign'st  thing  on  earth  • 

Was  parmaceti,  for  an  inward  bruise."  —  1  Henry  IV.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 


"  Because  the  partition  of  sciences  are  not  like  several  lines  that  meet  in 
one  angle,  but  rather  like  branches  of  trees  that  meet  in  one  stem." 

XVI.  n.  4,  App. 

"  As  many  arrows  loos'd  several  ways 

Fly  to  one  mark ; 

As  many  several  ways  meet  in  one  town ; 

As  many  fresh  streams  run  in  one  self-sea ; 

As  many  lines  close  in  the  dial's  centre."  —  Henry  V.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


t     "Cains  Marius  was  general  of  the  Romans  against  the  Cimbers,  who  came 
with  such  a  sea  of  multitude  upon  Italy."  — Apoth.  242- 

"  Who  taught  the  bee  to  sail  through  such  a  vast  sea  of  air?  "  —  Adv. 

"  Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 
Clean  from  my  hand  ?    No ;  this  my  hand  will  rather 
The  multitudinous  seas  incarnardine, 
Making  the  green  one  red."  —  Mad.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1  (2). 


PARALLELISMS.  321 

"  But  my  level  is  no  farther  but  to  do  the  part  of  a  true  friend." 

Letter,  1623. 
"  As  for  all  direct  or  indirect  glances  or  levels  at  men's  persons."  —VII.  59. 
—  "for  the  other  do  level  point  blank  at  the  inventory  of  causes  and 
axioms."  —  Nat.  Hist. 

[A  favorite  expression.] 
"  Everything  lies  level  to  our  wish."  —  Henry  IV. 
"  We  steal  by  line  and  level."  —  Tempest. 
"  And  hold  their  level  with  thy  princely  heart."  —  Henry  IV. 
"  Can  thrust  me  from  a  level  consideration." — 2  Henry  IV. 
"And  therefore  level  not  to  hit  their  lives."  —  Richard  III. 
"  For  that 's  the  mark  I  know  you  level  at."  —  Pericles. 
—  "  no  levell'd  malice 
Infects  one  comma  in  the  course  I  hold."  —  Timon. 


—  "  and  be  so  true  to  thyself  as  thou  be  not  false  to  others."  —  Ess.,  XXIII. 

"Pol.    To  thine  own  self  be  true ; 

And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 

Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man."  —  Hamlet,  Act  I.  8c.  3. 


"  The  poets  make  fame  a  monster.  They  describe  her  in  part  elegantly; 
and  in  part  gravely  and  sententiously.  They  say  look  how  many  feathers 
she  hath ;  so  many  eyes  she  hath  underneath ;  so  many  tongues ;  so  many 
voices ;  she  pricks  up  so  many  ears.  This  is  a  flourish.  There  follow  excel- 
lent parables:  as  that  she  gathereth  strength  in  going;  that  she  goeth  upon 
the  ground,  and  yet  hideth  her  head  in  the  clouds:  that  in  the  day  time  she 
sitteth  in  a  watchtower,  and  flieth  most  by  night :  that  she  mingleth  things 
done  with  things  not  done  and  that  she  is  a  terror  to  great  cities. 

"  But  now,  if  a  man  can  tame  this  monster,  — But  we  are  infected 

with  the  style  of  the  poets."  — Essay  of  Fame. 

"Enter  Rumour,  painted  full  of  tongues. 
Rum.    Open  your  ears ;  for  which  of  you  will  stop 
The  vent  of  hearing  when  loud  Rumour  speaks  ? 
I  from  the  Orient  to  the  drooping  West, 
Making  the  wind  my  post-horse,  still  unfold 
The  acts  commenced  on  this  ball  of  Earth  : 
Upon  my  tmigues  continual  slanders  ride, 
The  which  in  every  language  I  pronounce, 
Stuffing  the  ears  of  men  with  false  reports. 

Rumour  is  a  pipe 
Blown  by  surmises,  jealousies,  conjectures: 
And  of  so  easy  and  so  plain  a  stop, 
21 


322  PARALLELISMS. 

That  the  blunt  monster  with  uncounted  heads, 
The  still-discordant  wavering  multitude, 
Can  play  upon  it."  —  2  Henry  IV.,  Ind. 


"  And  as  for  Maximilian,  upon  twenty  respects,  he  could  not  have  been 
the  man."  —  Hist.  Henry  VII. 

—  "so  that  acts  of  this  nature  (if  this  were  one)  do  more  good  than 
twenty  bills  of  grace."  —  Letter,  1617. 

["  Twenty  "  is  an  habitual  expletive  of  this  author.] 

"Each  substance  of  a  grief  hath  twenty  shadows." 

JRichard  II.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 
"And  I  as  rich  in  having  such  a  jewel 

As  twenty  seas,  if  all  their  sand  were  pearl." —  Gent,  of  Ver. 
"  Than  to  accomplish  twenty  golden  crowns." 

3  Henry  VI.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

—  "twenty  times  his  worth." — 2  Henry  VI.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  twenty  thousand  times."  —  Ibid.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

—  "  twenty  times  so  many  faces."  —  Ibid.,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 
— "  twenty  times  their  power."  —  Ibid.,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 
"With  twenty  thousand  soul  confirming  oaths." 

Gent,  of  Ver.,  Act  II.  Sc.  6. 

"  I  am  yours  surer  to  you  than  your  own  life ;  for  as  they  speak  of  the 
turquoise  stone  in  a  ring,  I  will  break  into  twenty  pieces  before  you  have  the 
least  fell."  —  Letter  to  Essex,  XII.  292. 

"  Tub.  One  of  them  shewed  me  a  ring,  that  he  had  of  your  daughter  for 
a  monkey. 

Shy.  Out  upon  her !  Thou  torturest  me,  Tubal ;  it  was  my  turquoise :  I 
had  it  of  Leah  when  I  was  a  bachelor."  —  Mer.  of  Ven.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 


"  Yet  evermore  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  least  part  of  knowledge, 
passed  to  man  by  this  so  large  charter  from  God,  must  be  subject  to  that 
use,  for  which  God  hath  granted  it,  which  is  the  benefit  and  relief  of  the 
state  and  society  of  man.' '  —  Int.  of  Nat. 

"  Nature  never  lends 
The  smallest  scruple  of  her  excellence; 
But,  like  a  thrifty  goddess,  she  determines 
Herself  the  glory  of  a  creditor  — 
Both  thanks  and  use."  —  Measure  for  Measure,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


"  With  regard  to  the  countenance,  be  not  influenced  by  the  old  adage, 
1  Trust  not  to  a  man's  face.'  "-De  Aug.,  (Boston),  IX.  272. 


PARALLELISMS.  323 

"  There  's  no  art 
To  find  the  mind's  construction  in  the  face."  —  Macbeth,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 


"  Deformed  persons  are  commonly  even  with  nature ;  —  for  as  nature  haa 
done  ill  by  them,  so  do  they  by  nature,  being  for  the  most  part  (as  the 
Scripture  saith)  void  of  natural  affection:  and  so  they  have  their  revenge 
of  natures.     Certainly  there  is  a  consent  between  the  body  and  the  mind, 

and  where  nature  erretk  in  the  one,  she  ventureth  in  the  other: the 

curse  that  the  Psalm  speaketh  of,  That  it  shall  be  like  the  untimely  fruit  of  a 

woman,  brought  forth  before  it  came  to  perfection Whosoever  hath 

anything  fixed  in  his  person,  that  doth  induce  contempt,  hath  also  a  per- 
petual spur  in  himself  to  rescue  and  deliver  himself  from  scorn ;  therefore 

all  deformed  persons  are  extreme  bold But  because  there  is  in  man 

an  election,  touching  the  frame  of  his  mind,  and  a  necessity  in  the  frame 
of  his  body,  the  stars  of  natural  inclination  are  sometimes  obscured  by  the 
sun  of  discipline  and  virtue."  — Ess.,  I.  46. 

—  "  which  had  been  the  spur  of  this  region."  —  Fel.  Q.  Eliz.,  I.  400. 

"  Glos.    For  I  have  often  heard  my  mother  say, 

I  came  into  the  world  with  my  legs  forward 

The  midwife  wondered ;  and  the  women  cried, 
'  O,  Jesus  bless  us,  he  is  born  with  teeth ! ' 
And  so  I  was;  which  plainly  signified 
That  I  should  snarl,  and  bite,  and  play  the  dog. 
•   Then,  since  the  Heavens  have  shap'd  my  body  so, 
Let  Hell  make  crook'd  my  mind  to  answer  it." 

3  Henry  VI.,  Act  V.  Sc.  6. 

"Glos.    I,  that  am  curtail'd  of  this  fair  proportion, 
Cheated  of  feature  by  dissembling  nature, 
Deform'd,  unfinish'd,  sent  before  my  time 
Into  this  breathing  world,  scarce  half  made  np, 
And  that  so  lamely  and  unfashionable, 
That  dogs  bark  at  me  as  I  halt  by  them ;  — 
Why,  I,  in  this  weak  piping  time  of  peace, 
Have  no  delight  to  pass  awaj'  the  time, 
Unless  to  spy  my  shadow  in  the  sun, 
And  descant  on  mine  own  deformity: 
And  therefore,  since  I  cannot  prove  a  lover, 
To  entertain  these  fair  well-spoken  days, 
I  am  determined  to  prove  a  villain, 
And  hate  the  idle  pleasures  of  these  days." 

Richard  III.,  Act  I.  Sc  1. 


"Glos.    Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 
Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  York."  —  Ibid.,  Act  I.  Sc  1. 

"  I  have  no  spur 
To  prick  the  sides  of  my  intent"  —  Macbeth,  Act  I.  Sc.  7. 


321  PARALLELISMS. 

As  this  list  must  have  an  end,  let  it  be  closed  with  a 
comparison  of  Bacon's  "  Office  of  Constables "  (published 
in  1608)  with  the  scenes  of  the  "Watch  in  the  "Much  Ado 
About  Nothing",  (written  in  1599,)  thus  :  — 

"  4  Ques.     Of  what  rank  or  order  of  men  are  they?     Ans.  They  be  men 

as  is  now  used,  of  inferior,  yea,  of  base  condition ; and  that  they  be 

not  aged  or  sickly,  in  respect  of  keeping  watch  and  toil  of  their  place :  nor 
that  they  be  in  any  man's  lively intended  and  executed  for  con- 
servation of  peace,  and  repression  of  all  manner  of  disturbance  and  hurt  of 
the  people,  and  that  as  well  by  way  of  prevention  as  punishment.     To  take 

the  ancient  oath  of  allegiance  of  all  males  above  twelve  years The 

election  of  the  petty  constable  is  by  the  people." 

"Dogberry.    Are  you  good  men  and  true  ? 

Verges.  Yea,  or  else  it  were  pity  but  they  should  suffer  salvation,  body 
and  soul. 

Dogb.    Nay,  that  were  a  punishment  too  good  for  them ;  if  they  should 

have  any  allegiance  in  them,  being  chosen  for  the  Prince's  Watch 

First,  who  think  you  is  the  most  desartless  man  to  be  Constable  ? 

1  Watch.  Hugh  Oatcake,  sir,  or  George  Seacoal,  for  they  can  read  and 
•write. 

Dogb.    Why  you  speak  like  an  ancient  and  most  quiet  watchman." 

— "  and  that  the  statutes  made  for  the  punishment  of  sturdy  beggars, 
vagabonds,  rogues,  and  other  idle  persons  coming  within  your  office  be  truly 

executed  and  the  offenders  punished Likewise  the  additional  power 

which  is  given  by  divers  statutes,  it  is  hard  to  comprehend  in  any  brevity." 

"Dogb You  are  thought  here  to  be  the  most  senseless  and  fit 

man  for  the  Constable  of  the  Watch ;  therefore,  bear  you  the  lantern.  This 
is  your  charge.  You  shall  comprehend  all  vagrom  men ;  and  you  are  to  bid 
any  man  stand  in  the  Prince's  name." 

"6  Ques.    What  if  they  refuse  to  do  their  office? Command 

them  in  the  king's  name  to  keep  peace,  and  depart,  and  forbear." 

"  2  Watch.    How  if  he  will  not  stand  ? How  if  the  nurse  be 

asleep  and  will  not  hear  us  ? 

Dogb.  Why  then,  depart  in  peace,  and  let  the  child  awake  her  with 
crying 

1  Watch.    We  charge  you  in  the  Prince's  name,  stand." 

"5  Ques.  What  allowance  have  the  constables?  Ans.  They  have  no 
allowance,  but  are  bound  by  duty  to  perform  their  office  gratis ;  which  may 
be  endured,  because  it  is  but  annual." 

"Dogb for,  for  the  watch  to  babble  and  talk  is  most  tolerable 

and  not  to  be  endured." 

— "  and  to  inquire  of  all  default  of  officers,  as  constables,  aletasters,  and 
the  like And  so  much  for  the  peace." 


PARALLELISMS.  325 

"Dogb Well,  you  are  to  call  at  all  the  alehouse*,  and  bid  those 

that  are  drunk  get  them  to  bed This  is  the  end  of  the  charge." 

"  The  use  of  his  office  is  rather  for  preventing  or  staying  of  mischief  than 

for  punishment  of  offences Likewise  the  power  which  is  given  by 

divers  statutes  — or  when  sudden  matter  ariseth  upon  his  view,  or 

notorious  circumstances,  to  apprehend  offenders,  and  to  carry  them  before  the 
justices  of  peace,  and  generally  to  imprison  in  like  cases  of  necessity,  when 
the  case  will  not  endure  the  present  carrying  of  the  party  before  the  justices. 

the  jury  being  to  present  offenders,  and  offences  are  chiefly  to  take 

light  from  the  constable and  to  resist  and  punish  all  turbulent  per- 
sons, whose  misdemeanors  may  tend  to  the  disquiet  of  the  people 

That  two  sufficient  gentlemen  or  yeomen  shall  be  appointed  constables  of 
every  hundred ;  —  the  sheriff  thereof  shall  nominate  sufficient  persons  to  be 
bailiffs." 

"Dogb.    You,  Constable,  are  to  present  the  Prince's  own  person :  if  you 

meet  the  Prince  in  the  night,  you  may  stay  him Five  shillings  to 

one  on  't,  with  any  man  that  knows  the  sttitues,  he  may  stay  him:  marry,  not 
without  the  Prince  be  willing;  for,  indeed,  the  watch  ought  to  offend  no 
man,  and  it  is  an  offence  to  stay  a  man  against  his  will."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"Sex.  But  which  are  the  offenders,  that  are  to  be  examined?  let  them 
come  before  Master  Constable."  —  Act  I V.  Sc.  2. 

"Doyb.  If  there  be  any  matter  of  weight  chances,  call  up  me :  keep  your 
fellows'  counsels  and  your  own  and  good  night."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"Dogb.  One  word,  sir,  our  watch,  sir,  have,  indeed,  comprehended  two 
auspicious  persons,  and  we  would  have  them  this  morning  examined  before 
your  worship. 

Leon.    Take  their  examination  yourself,  and  bring  it  me. 

Dogb.     It  shall  be  suffigance." —  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

"And  the  constable  ought  to  seize  his  goods,  and  inventory  them  in 
presence  of  honest  neighbours." 

"Dogb.  Goodman  Verges,  sir,  speaks  a  little  off  the  matter:  an  old  man, 
sir, but  in  faith,  honest  as  the  skin  between  his  brows. 

Verg.  Yes,  I  thank  God,  I  am  as  honest  as  any  man  living,  that  is  an  old 
man,  and  no  honester  than  I 

Leon.     Neighbours,  you  are  tedious 

Dogb.    Well,  one  word  more,  honest  neighbours."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

—  "  or  do  suspect  him  of  murder  or  felony,  he  may  declare  it  to  the 
constable,  and  the  constable  ought,  upon  such  declaration  or  complaint,  to 
carry  him  before  a  justice  of  peace:  and  if  by  common  voice  or  fame  any 
man  be  suspected— If  any  house  be  suspected—  " 

"Dogb.  If  you  meet  a  thief,  you  may  suspect  him,  by  virtue  of  your  office 
to  be  no  true  man 

2  Watch.    If  we  know  him  to  be  a  thief,  shall  we  not  lay  hands  on  him  ? 


326  PARALLELISMS. 

Dogb.  Truly,  by  your  office  you  may ;  but,  I  think,  they  that  touch  pitch 
will  be  defiled."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"Dogb.  Dost  thou  not  suspect  my  place?  Dost  thou  not  suspect  my 
years?"  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

"  You  shall  swear  that  you  shall  well  and  truly  serve  the  king." 

"Dogb.    Masters,  do  you  serve  God? 

Bor.    Yes,  sir,  we  hope  — 

Dugb.    Write  down  —  that  they  hope  they  serve  God."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

"  There  is  a  clerk  of  the  peace  for  the  entering  and  engrossing  all  pro- 
ceedings before  the  said  justices Others  there  are  of  that  number 

called  justices  of  peace  and  quorum The  chief  of  them  is  called 

custos  rotatorum." 

"Dogb.  We  will  spare  for  no  wit  I  warrant  you;  here  's  that  [touching  his 
forehead]  shall  drive  some  of  them  to  a  non.  com. :  only  get  the  learned 
writer  to  set  down  our  excommunication,  and  meet  me  at  the  goal." 

Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

"  Slen.    In  the  County  of  Gloster,  justice  of  peace  and  coram. 

Shal.     Ay,  cousin  Slender,  and  cust-a-lorum. 

Slen.     Ay,  and  rotolorum  too."  —  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

The  list  of  these  similitudes  might  be  greatly  extended, 
without  loss  to  the  force  of  evidence  which  they  exhibit : 
indeed,  the  comparison  would  be  almost  without  limit,  if  it 
could  be  carried,  in  this  form,  to  all  those  individual  pecu- 
liarities, minute  resemblances,  more  delicate  touches,  and 
finer  shades  of  meaning,  which  impress  the  mind  of  the 
critical  reader  no  less  palpably,  but  which  must  lose  their 
force  when  wrenched  from  the  context  in  this  manner. 
Like  the  character  of  a  handwriting,  the  identity  can  be 
distinctly  seen  and  felt,  while  the  particulars  wherein  it 
consists  can  scarcely  be  pointed  out,  or  described.  But 
surely,  here  is  enough  to  establish  such  a  correspondence, 
nay,  absolute  identity,  in  the  thought,  style,  manner,  and 
diction,  and  in  the  distinguishing  peculiarities  of  these  writ- 
ings, as  was  never  known  to  exist  in  the  compositions  of 
any  two  different  authors  that  ever  lived.  It  is  safe  to  say 
'  no  such  list  can  be  produced  from  the  writings  of  any  two 
authors  of  that  or  any  other  age  :  no  similarity  of  life, 
genius,  or  studies  ever  produced  an  identity  like  this.    And 


PARALLELISMS.  327 

here,  the  vast  difference  which  is  known  to  have  existed 
between  these  men,  in  respect  of  their  education,  studies, 
and  whole  personal  history,  would  seem  to  preclude  all  pos- 
sibility of  mistake.  The  coincidences  are  not  merely  such 
as  might  be  attributed  to  the  style  and  usage  of  that  age : 
they  extend  to  the  scope  of  thought,  the  particular  ideas, 
the  modes  of  thinking  and  feeling,  the  choice  of  metaphor, 
the  illustrative  imagery,  and  those  singular  peculiarities, 
oddities,  and  quaintnesses  of  expression  and  use  of  words, 
which  everywhere  and  in  all  times  mark  and  distinguish 
the  individual  writer. 


CHAPTER  V. 

MODELS. 

"  For  true  art  is  always  capable  of  advancing."  1—  Bacon. 

§  1.   "ILLUSTRATIVE    EXAMPLES." 

It  has  already  been  observed,  that  Bacon  had  a  purpose, 
though  he  broke  the  order  of  time,  to  attempt  to  draw 
down  to  the  senses  things  which  flew  too  high  over  men's 
heads  in  general,  in  other  forms  of  delivery,  by  means  of 
patterns  of  natural  stories,  and  feigned  histories  or  speak- 
ing pictures  ;  and  it  would  seem  to  be  very  clear,  that  he 
had  a  similar  object  in  view  in  those  "illustrative  examples," 
which  were  to  constitute  the  Fourth  Part  of  the  Great  In- 
stauration,  which  was  never  published,  nor  indeed  written, 
otherwise  than  as  we  may  have  some  part  of  it,  or  at  least 
some  exemplification  of  what  it  was  in  part  to  be,  in  these 
very  plays.  First,  premising  that  after  the  Second  Philos- 
ophy, in  the  previous  parts,  had  succeeded  in  furnishing  the 
understanding  with  "  the  most  surest  helps  and  precautions," 
and  had  "completed,  by  a  rigorous  levy,  a  host  of  divine 
works,"  nothing  would  remain  to  be  done  but  "  to  attack 
Philosophy  herself,"  and  that,  in  a  matter  "  so  arduous  and 
doubtful,"  a  few  reflections  must  necessarily  be  inserted, 
"  partly  for  instruction  and  partly  for  present  use,"  he  pro- 
ceeds :  — 

"The  first  of  these  is,  that  we  should  offer  some  ex- 

1  "  Quin  contra,  artem  veram  adolescere  statuimus."  —  Scala  InteUectus, 
Works  (Boston),  V.  181;  Tram,  of  Bacon,  (Mont),  XIV.  426-7;  (Phil), 
III.  519. 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  329 

amples  of  our  method  and  course  of  investigation  and 
discovery,  as  exhibited  in  particular  subjects ;  preferring 
the  most  dignified  subjects  of  our  inquiry,  and  such  as 
differ  most  from  each  other,  so  that  in  every  branch  we 
may  have  an  example.  Nor  do  we  speak  of  those  examples, 
which  are  added  to  particular  precepts  and  rules  by  way  of 
illustration  (for  we  have  furnished  them  abundantly  in  the 
Second  Part  of  our  work),  but  we  mean  actual  types  and 
models,  calculated  to  place,  as  it  were,  before  our  eyes 
["  $ub  oculos  "]  the  whole  process  of  the  mind,  and  the  con- 
tinuous frame  ["fabricam  "]  and  order  of  discovery  in  par- 
ticular subjects  selected  for  their  variety  and  importance. 
For  we  recollect  that  in  mathematics,  with  the  diagram 
before  our  eyes,  the  demonstration  easily  and  clearly  fol- 
lowed, but  without  this  advantage,  everything  appeared 
more  intricate  and  more  subtle  than  was  really  the  case. 
We  devote,  therefore,  the  Fourth  Part  of  our  work  to  such 
examples,  which  is  in  fact  nothing  more  than  a  particular 
and  fully  developed  application  of  the  Second  Part." 1 

As  it  is  said  in  his  letter  to  Fulgentius,  the  great  Instau- 
ration  began  with  the  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum  as  the 
first  part ;  the  Novum  Organum  was  the  second  part ;  the 
Natural  History  was  the  third  part ;  these  Examples  were 
to  be  the  fourth  part ;  the  Prodromus  (or  forerunner  of  the 
Second  Philosophy)  was  to  be  the  fifth  part ;  and  the  sixth 
part  would  complete  philosophy  itself,  and  "  touch  almost 
the  universals  of  nature."  In  this  consummation  of  the 
Second  Philosophy,  he  would,  of  course,  arrive  again  at  the 
Philosophia  Prima,  by  that  road,  and  in  that  way  ;  and  so, 
philosophy  itself  would  necessarily  include  both  the  First 
and  the  Second  Philosophy  in  one  Universal  Science,  which 
would  amount  to  "Sapience,"  or  "the  knowledge  of  all 
things  divine  and  human." 2  In  this  letter,  the  subject  of 
the  Fourth  Part  is  introduced  in  connection  with  certain 

l  Distribution  of  the  Work;   Works  (Mont),  XTV.  22;  (Spedd.,  I.  225). 
a  De  Aug.  Scient. 


330  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

portions  of  the  Natural  History,  concerning  winds,  and 
touching  life  and  death,  which  he  mentions  as  "  mixed 
writings  composed  of  natural  history,  and  a  rude  and  im- 
perfect instrument,  or  help  of  the  understanding."  He 
then  proceeds  to  say,  that  this  Fourth  Part  should  contain 
many  examples  of  that  instrument,  more  exact  and  much 
more  fitted  to  rules  of  induction."  From  these  expressions 
alone  it  might  be  inferred  that  these  examples  were  to  be 
confined  strictly  to  matters  of  physical  inquiry ;  but  when 
it  is  considered,  that  the  scope  of  his  system  always  em- 
braced the  whole  field  of  knowledge  (however  divided  into 
parts),  of  which  his  principal  divisions  were  God,  Nature, 
and  Man,  it  may  not  appear  incredible  that  this  instrument 
or  help  of  the  understanding,  and  these  examples,  were  to 
find  an  application  to  man  and  human  affairs  as  well  as  to 
mere  physical  nature. 

Indeed,  all  question  of  this  would  seem  to  be  set  at  rest 
by  his  Thirteen  Tables  of  the  Thread  of  the  Labyrinth ; 
for,  in  the  paper  entitled  "  Filum  Labyrinthi  sive  Inquisitio 
Legitime/,  de  Motu"  these  tables  are  enumerated  in  like 
manner  as  a  part  of  Natural  Philosophy,  and  in  the  Novum 
Organum,  they  are  spoken  of  as  included  in  the  Fourth 
Part.  The  only  specimens  of  them  actually  found  at- 
tempted in  his  works  are  certain  fragments,  under  such 
titles  as  Heat  and  Cold,  Sound  and  Hearing,  Dense  and 
Rare,  the  History  of  Winds,  and  the  like ;  but  that  the  en- 
tire series  was  to  have  a  much  wider  range,  is  evident  from 
his  own  "  Digest  of  the  Tables,"  which  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  first  are  tables  of  motion ;  the  second,  of  heat 
and  cold ;  the  third,  of  the  rays  of  things  and  impressions 
at  a  distance  ;  the  fourth,  of  vegetation  and  life  ;  the  fifth, 
of  the  passions  of  the  animal  body ;  the  sixth,  of  sense 
and  objects ;  the  seventh,  of  the  affections  of  the  mind  ; 
the  eighth,  of  the  mind  and  its  faculties.  These  pertain  to 
the  separation  of  nature,  and  concern  Form  ;  but  these 
which  follow  pertain  to  the  construction  of  nature,  and  con- 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  3S1 

cern  Matter.  Ninth,  of  the  architecture  of  the  world; 
tenth,  of  great  relations,  or  the  accidents  of  essence; 
eleventh,  of  the  composition  of  bodies  or  inequality  of 
parts  ;  twelfth,  of  species  or  the  ordinary  fabric  and  com- 
binations of  things  ;  and  thirteenth,  of  small  relations  or 
properties.  And  so  a  universal  inquisition  may  be  com- 
pleted in  thirteen  tables." 1 

It  is  not  easy  to  understand  exactly  what  his  meaning 
was  ;  but  he  probably  considered  motion  as  a  phenomenal 
effect  of  force  ;  and  there  is  no  motion  without  moving 
power.  Addressing  himself  to  an  inquiry  into  the  nature, 
laws,  limitations,  and  modes  of  power,  or  forces,  by  experi- 
mental methods,  and  finding  the  subject  presented  in 
nature  in  the  shape  of  phenomenal  facts  as  effects,  he 
would  naturally  begin  with  a  table  of  motions.  Indeed,  he 
defined  Heat  as  being  nothing  else  but  motion,  or  moving 
force ;  a  doctrine  which  our  more  modern  science,  from 
Rumford  to  Tyndall,  confirms.  Pursuing  the  study  to  the 
end,  he  would  expect  to  arrive,  in  time,  at  a  knowledge  of 
"the  last  power  and  cause  of  nature."  But,  at  first,  he 
would  begin  with  the  secondary  powers  or  forces,  taking 
the  phenomenal  effects  as  facts,  in  such  subjects  as  heat 
and  cold,  the  radiating  motions  producing  impressions  at  a 
distance  (what  are  now  treated  of  under  the  names  of  light, 
heat,  electricity,  magnetism,  and  the  like),  sound  and  hear- 
ing, density  and  rarity,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  winds, 
&c.  He  then  comes  to  the  motions  of  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal life,  the  passions,  the  senses,  the  affections,  or  emotions, 
and,  at  last,  to  the  mind  itself  and  the  mental  faculties.  In 
all  this,  the  inquiry  looks  to  the  form  or  law.  Bacon's 
idea  of  form  would  seem  to  have  been  identical  with  what 
we  would  now  call  law  of  power  giving  form  to  itself.2  And 
so  this  portion  of  the  Tables  would  span  the  whole  field  of 
sensible  and  visible  motions  in  nature,  beginning  with  the 

l  Works  (Boston),  VII.  170. 

a  Trans,  of  Nov.  Org.,  II.  2;  Works  (Boston),  VIII.  168;  206. 


332  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

mind  of  nature,  or  thinking  power  in  the  Creator,  and  end- 
ing in  mind,  or  finite  thinking  power  in  man.  The  other 
portion  concerned  rather  the  architectural  structure  of  the 
universe,  the  greater  accidents  or  relative  qualities  of 
essences,  the  composition  of  bodies,  the  species  of  things, 
whether  vegetable,  animal,  or  mineral,  and  finally,  the 
lesser  accidents,  relative  qualities  or  properties  of  material 
things ;  and  all  this  concerned  matter  as  it  is  presented  to 
observation  in  nature,  as  such. 

It  is  plain  we  were  to  have  Tables  of  the  passions,  the 
senses,  the  emotions  or  affections,  and  the  faculties  of  the 
mind.  There  was  to  be  not  only  a  contemplative  science, 
but  an  active  science  pointing  to  practical  uses.  And 
these  illustrative  examples  of  the  Fourth  Part  may  very 
well  have  been  intended  to  embrace  all  branches  of  this 
"  universal  inquisition." 

In  fact,  so  much  is  expressly  declared  in  the  Novum  Or- 
ganum,  thus :  — 

"  It  may  also  be  asked  (in  the  way  of  doubt  rather  than 
objection)  whether  I  speak  of  natural  philosophy  only,  or 
whether  I  mean  that  the  other  sciences,  logic,  ethics,  and 
politics,  should  be  carried  on  by  this  method.  JSTow  I  cer- 
tainly mean  what  I  have  said  to  be  understood  of  them  all ; 
and  as  the  common  logic,  which  governs  by  the  syllogism, 
extends  not  only  to  natural  but  to  all  sciences ;  so  does 
mine  also,  which  proceeds  by  induction,  embrace  every- 
thing. For  I  form  a  history  and  tables  of  discovery  for 
anger,  fear,  shame,  and  the  like  ;  for  matters  political ;  and 
again  for  the  mental  operations  of  memory,  composition, 
and  division,  judgment,  and  the  rest ;  not  less  than  for 
cold,  or  light,  or  vegetation,  or  the  like.  But,  nevertheless, 
since  my  method  of  interpretation  (after  the  history  has 
been  prepared  and  duly  arranged)  regards  not  the  working 
and  discourse  of  the  mind  only  (as  the  common  logic 
does),  but  the  nature  of  things  also,  I  supply  the  mind 
with  such  rules  and  guidance  that  it  may  in  every  case 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  838 

apply  itself  to  the  nature  of  things.  And,  therefore,  I  de- 
liver many  and  diverse  precepts  in  the  doctrine  of  Inter- 
pretation, which  in  some  measure  modify  the  method  of 
invention  according  to  the  quality  and  condition  of  the 
subject  of  inquiry."  a 

This  Fourth  Part,  then,  was  not  to  be  strictly  a  system 
of  psychology,  but  it  was  to  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  the 
actual  nature  of  things,  in  a  visible  representation  of  the 
whole  process  of  the  mind  in  the  continuous  fabric  and 
order  of  discovery  in  these  special  and  very  noble  sub- 
jects. The  method  was  to  be  according  to  the  quality 
and  condition  of  the  subject.  He  intimates  also,  that  his 
method  cannot  be  brought  down  to  common  apprehension, 
save  by  effects  and  works  only.  He  does  not  desire  to  pull 
down  or  destroy  the  philosophy,  arts,  and  sciences  "at 
present  in  use,"  but  is  glad  to  see  them  "  used,  cultivated, 
and  honored."  But  he  gives  "  constant  and  distinct  warn- 
ing, that  by  the  methods  now  in  use,  neither  can  any  great 
progress  be  made  in  the  doctrines  and  contemplative  part 
of  sciences,  nor  can  they  be  carried  out  to  any  magnitude 
of  works,"  and  that  if  works  of  magnitude  are  to  be  ac- 
complished in  this  kind,  it  must  be  done  in  his  way.  Again, 
he  says,  "  discoveries  are,  as  it  were,  new  creations  and 
imitations  of  God's  works,  —  as  well  sang  the  poet :  — 

"  To  man's  frail  race  great  Athens  long  ago 
First  gave  the  seed  whence  waring  harvests  grow, 
And  re-created  all  our  life  below."  2 

This  same  purpose  is  expressed,  again,  with  a  still  more 
distinct  and  unmistakable  reference  to  something  of  this 
kind,  in  that  introduction  or  preface  to  the  Fourth  Part, 
which  is  styled  the  "  Scaling  Ladder  of  the  Intellect,  or 
Thread  of  the  Labyrinth," 8  in  which  he  states  that  these 
"  illustrative  examples"  ("exemplaria  ")  were  to  be  "  in  the 

i  Nov.  Org.,  Works  (Boston),  I.  333;  (Trans.,  VIII.  lb.  159). 
a   Works  (Mont.),  XIV.  426-7  (Philad.  III.  519),  trans,  by  F.  W.;  Work* 
(Boston),  V.  177-181. 
8  Works  (Boston),  VIII.  161. 


334  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

form  which  we  think  most  agreeable  to  truth,  and  regard 
as  approved  and  authorized  "  ["  ut  probatam  et  electam  "]. 
Nor  would  he  regard  "  the  customary  fashion  "  ["  more  apud 
homines  recepto  "]  as  absolutely  necessary  in  all  the  parts 
of  this  formula,  as  if  they  must  be  one  and  inviolable  ;  for 
he  did  not  think  the  industry  and  happiness  of  men  were 
to  be  bound,  as  it  were,  to  "  a  single  pillar "  [•'  ad  colum- 
nam  "].  It  would  seem  to  be  very  plain  from  the  whole 
context,  as  well  as  from  the  use  of  this  figure  of  the 
"  single  pillar,"  and  this  reference  to  the  one  and  inviolable 
custom  hitherto  received  among  men,  that  he  meant  to  allude 
to  that  indispensable  and  inviolable  law  of  unity,  which 
had  always  been  imperiously  required  as  an  absolute  rule 
of  composition  in  all  dramatic  writing,  ancient  and  mod- 
ern ;  especially  when  it  is  distinctly  declared,  in  the  con- 
cluding sentence,  that  the  subject,  of  which  he  was  speak- 
ing, was  no  other  than  "  true  art,"  thus :  "  Nothing,  indeed, 
need  prevent  those  who  possess  great  leisure,  or  have  sur- 
mounted the  difficulties  infallibly  encountered  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  experiment,  from  carrying  onward  the  pro- 
cess here  pointed  out  ["  rem  monstratam  "].  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  our  firm  conviction  that  true  art  is  always  capa- 
ble of  advancing."  ["  Quin  contra,  artem  veram  adolescere 
statuimus."]  The  translation  of  "  F.  W.,"  taken  from  the 
edition  of  Montagu,  is  here  followed.  Mr.  Spedding,  ap- 
parently unable  to  make  out  the  meaning  of  this  passage, 
or,  perhaps,  not  looking  for  this  sense  of  it,  seems  to  think 
that  "  this  can  hardly  be  what  Bacon  wrote," *  and  that 
possibly  the  manuscript  was  imperfect  at  the  end ;  but  cer- 
tainly, if  understood  with  reference  to  this  view  of  the  sub- 
ject, it  will  be  found  to  be  in  keeping  with  the  main  tenor 
and  purport  of  the  whole  tract.  And  probably  this  was  as 
much  as  he  intended  to  say  then,  on  that  head,  and  so 
stopped  short  there. 

Certainly,  after  this  distinct  intimation  of  his  intent,  we 
l  Works  (Boston),  V.  181,  n.  (1). 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  335 

need  not  be  surprised  to  find  the  ancient  unities  almost 
wholly  disregarded  in  these  plays ;  nor  that  Coleridge 
should  find  them  to  be  a  new  kind  of  dramatic  romance, 
differing  in  genus  from  the  ancient  drama ;  nor  that  they 
should  answer  admirably  well  to  Bacon's  conception  of  a 
representative  visible  history,  a  speaking  picture,  or  a  type 
and  model  of  the  whole  process  of  the  mind,  and  the  con- 
tinuous fabric  and  order  of  discovery  in  the  most  noble 
subjects  ;  nor  that  they  should  partake  of  that  sweet  travel- 
ling through  universal  variety,  which  was  to  be  the  lot  of 
him  who  should  be  able  to  climb  the  hill  of  the  Muses. 

The  "  Winter's  Tale  "  and  the  "  Tempest"  were  both  writ- 
ten in  1611.  Some  critics  have  supposed  that  Shakespeare, 
in  the  "  Tempest,"  had  a  special  purpose  of  showing  that  he 
could  write  a  play  which  should  strictly  observe  the  ancient 
unities ;  while  others,  like  Mr.  White,  have  noticed  that 
the  "  Winter's  Tale  "  is  written  in  utter  defiance  of  the  one 
and  inviolable  rule  :  in  this  instance,  for  certain,  the  author 
would  not  be  bound  to  "  a  single  pillar."  He  puts  sixteen 
years  between  two  acts.  Inland  countries  are  brought  to 
the  sea.  The  Delphic  Oracle,  the  King  of  Sicily,  the  Em- 
peror of  Russia,  and  psalm-singing  Puritans,  are  made  to 
figure  upon  the  same  stage.  And  the  Chorus  of  the  fourth 
act,  in  the  name  of  Time,  gives  such  reason  for  it  as  at 
once  to  remind  us  of  the  promised  disregard  of  the  received 
custom,  thus :  — 

"  Time.    I  that  please  some,  try  all,  both  joy  and  terror 
Of  good  and  bad,  that  makes  and  unfolds  error, 
Now  take  upon  me,  in  the  name  of  Time, 
To  use  my  wings.    Impute  it  not  a  crime 
To  me,  or- my  swift  passage,  that  I  slide 
O'er  sixteen  years,  and  leave  the  growth  untri'd, 
Of  that  wide  gap ;  since  it  is  in  my  power 
To  overthrow  law,  and  in  one  self-born  hour 
To  plant  and  ovenchelm  custom.    Let  me  pass 
The  same  I  am,  ere  ancient'st  order  was, 
Or  what  is  now  received:  I  witness  to 
The  times  that  brought  them  in:  so  shall  I  do 


336  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

The  glistering  of  this  present,  as  my  tale 
Now  seems  to  it.    Your  patience  thus  allowing, 
I  turn  my  glass,  and  give  my  scene  such  growing 
As  you  had  slept  between." 

Here  is  identity  in  both  the  thought  and  the  language  ; 
and  can  it  be  due  to  accidental  coincidence,  rather  than  to 
the  habitual  expression  of  one  and  the  same  writer,  that  we 
have  here,  also,  the  same  figure  of  art  growing  ("  adoles- 
cere  ")  and  a  scene  growing  ?  And  considering  what  these 
models  should  be,  that  were  to  place  the  whole  order  and 
process  of  discovery  in  particular  subjects  before  the  eyes 
("  sub  ocidos  "),  it  is,  at  least,  not  clear  that  it  could  be 
anything  else  than  precisely  what  Hamlet  demanded  of  the 
dramatic  art,  namely,  that  it  should  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature ;  and,  according  to  the  interpretation  of  Professor 
Gervinus,  "  that  it  should  give  a  representation  of  life,  of 
men  and  their  operating  powers,  by  which  means  it  works 
indeed  morality,  but  in  the  purest  poetic  way,  by  image,  by 
lively  representation,  and  by  imaginative  skill.  To  perceive 
and  to  know  the  virtues  and  crimes  of  men,  to  reflect  them 
as  in  a  mirror,  and  to  exhibit  them  in  their  sources,  their 
nature,  their  workings,  and  their  results,  and  in  such  a  way 
as  to  exclude  chance  and  to  banish  arbitrary  fate,  which  can 
have  no  place  in  a  well-ordered  world,  —  this  is  the  task 
which  Shakespeare  has  imposed  upon  the  poet  and  upon 
himself." x 

The  New  Atlantis  was  written  expressly  as  a  pattern  of 
a  natural  story,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  accounted  an  acci- 
dental circumstance,  that  this  same  figure  of  the  "  pillar  " 
appears,  again,  in  connection  with  a  pretty  comprehensive 
conception  of  human  works,  in  that  "  great  miracle  "  which 
brought  the  canonical  books  of  Scripture  to  the  island  of 
Bensalem,  "  in  a  great  pillar  of  light,"  rising  from  the  sea 
toward  heaven,  and  so  approaching  the  shore  ;  on  behold- 
ing which,  one  of  the  wise  men  of  Solomon's  House  fell 

l  Shakes.  Comm.  (London,  1863),  I.  325.    Trans,  by  F.  E.  Bunnett. 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  337 

upon  his  knees  and  began  to  pray,  thus  :  "  Lord  God  of 
heaven  and  earth,  thou  hast  vouchsafed  of  thy  grace,  to 
those  of  our  order,  to  know  the  works  of  creation,  and  the 
secrets  of  them ;  and  to  discern  as  far  as  appertaineth  to 
the  generations  of  men,  between  divine  miracles,  works  of 
nature,  works  of  art,  and  impostures  and  illusions  of  all 
sorts." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Bacon's  scheme  of  philos- 
ophy constituted  a  kind  of  intellectual  globe,  or  full  circle. 
In  that  collection  of  Antitheses,  which  he  speaks  of  as  a 
youthful  labor,  he  expresses  himself  thus :  "  It  is  good  to 
have  the  orb  of  the  mind  concentric  with  the  universe." 
Starting  from  the  Philosophia  Prima  with  a  summary  par- 
tition of  all  the  knowledge  and  learning  which  the  human 
race  was  in  possession  of,  in  his  time,  it  proceeded  through 
the  second  or  experimental  and  inductive  philosophy,  until 
the  wheel  was  come  full  circle  in  philosophy  itself,  which 
was  to  be  at  once  a  knowledge  of  all  science  in  a  compre- 
hensible theory  of  the  universe,  and  an  active  science  and 
an  intelligent  power  of  action  ;  and  the  whole  was  to  have 
a  practical  bearing  and  effect  upon  the  business,  uses,  life, 
and  happiness  of  man.  Philosophy  itself,  the  object  of  the 
Sixth  Part,  he  says,  was  to  have  for  its  end,  not  only  "  con- 
templative enjoyment,  but  the  common  affairs  and  fortune 
of  mankind,  and  a  complete  power  of  action."  The  Sec- 
ond Philosophy  embraced  his  entire  method,  metaphysics 
included,  but  more  especially,  perhaps,  as  applied  to  phys- 
ical science  as  such  ;  but  it  was  also  to  include  the  whole 
field  of  civil,  industrial,  and  social  affairs,  and  the  practical 
life  of  the  individual  man,  —  "  whatever,  indeed,  might  ad- 
minister to  the  advantage  and  happiness  of  mankind." 
The  Sixth  Part,  to  which  all  the  rest  was  to  be  subservient 
and  auxiliary,  was  to  culminate  in  a  final  and,  complete 
philosophy  of  the  universe ;  and  it  was  to  embrace,  so  far 
at  least  as  the  power  and  faculty  of  the  human  mind  could 
go,  a  complete  knowledge  of  "the  order,  operation,  and 
22 


338  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

mind  of  Nature."  Nor  was  it  to  give  out  a  dream  of  the 
fancy  as  a  model  of  the  world  ;  but  he  would  rather  "  pray 
to  God,  in  his  kindness,  to  vouchsafe  to  us  the  means  of 
writing  an  apocalyptic  revelation  and  true  vision  of  the 
traces  and  stamps  of  the  Creator  upon  his  creatures  * 
[creations].1 

But,  doubtless,  this  Fourth  Part,  thus  devoted  to  ex- 
amples, was,  in  a  manner,  to  span  both  hemispheres  of  the 
intellectual  globe,  and,  springing  from  the  physical  as  basis 
and  starting  ground,  reach  the  height  of  things  in  the 
metaphysical  region  of  universals.  And  so  he  tells  us 
here,  in  this  "  Scaling  Ladder,"  that  he  had  described  the 
introductory  part  of  the  progress  in  the  second  book  (the 
Novum  Organum),  which  expounded  principles  and  rules 
for  the  right  use  of  the  understanding  in  the  whole  busi- 
ness, and,  in  the  third,  had  "  treated  on  the  phenomena  of 
the  universe  and  on  natural  history,  plunging  into  and 
traversing  the  woodlands,  as  it  were,  of  Nature,  here  over- 
shadowed (as  by  foliage)  with  the  infinite  variety  of  exper- 
iments ;  there  perplexed  and  entangled  (as  by  thorns  and 
briers)  with  the  subtlety  of  acute  commentations."  But 
now,  he  would  advance  "  from  the  woods  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountains,"  reaching  "  a  more  disengaged,  but  a  more  ar- 
duous station."  He  should  "  proceed  from  [natural]  his- 
tory by  a  firm  track,  new,  indeed,  and  hitherto  unexplored, 
to  universals."  To  these  "  paths  of  contemplation,  in 
truth,  might  appositely  be  applied  the  celebrated  and  often 
quoted  illustration  of  the  double  road  of  active  life,  of 
which  one  branch,  at  first  even  and  level,  conducted  the 
traveller  to  places  precipitous  and  impassable;  the  other, 
though  steep  and  rough  at  the  entrance,  terminated  in  per- 
fect smoothness.  In  a  similar  manner  he,  who,  in  the  very 
outset  of  his  inquiries,  lays  firm  hold  of  certain  fixed  prin- 
ciples in  the  science,  and,  with  immovable  reliance  upon 

l  Distribution  (Plan)  of  the  Work  (Mont.),  XIV.  21;  Spedd.  (Boston), 
I.  227. 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  339 

them,  disentangles  (as  he  will  with  little  effort)  what  he 
handles,  if  he  advances  steadily  onward,  not  flinching  out 
of  excess  either  of  self-confidence,  or  of  self-distrust,  from 
the  object  of  his  pursuit,  will  find  that  he  is  journeying  in 
the  first  of  these  two  tracks  ;  and  if  he  can  endure  to  sus- 
pend his  judgment,  and  to  mount  gradually,  and  to  climb 
by  regular  succession  the  height  of  things,  like  so  many 
tops  of  mountains,  with  persevering  and  indefatigable 
patience,  he  will  in  due  time  attain  the  very  uppermost 
elevations  of  nature  ["  ad  summitates  et  vertices  naturce  "], 
where  his  station  will  be  serene,  his  prospect  delightful, 
and  his  descent  to  all  the  practical  arts  by  a  gentle  slope 
perfectly  easy." 1 

The  patience  and  resolution  here  required  may  remind 
us,  again,  of  the  saying  of  Plato,  that  "  the  whole  of  nature 
being  of  one  kindred,  and  the  soul  having  before  known 
all  things  [i.  e.  the  Divine  Soul,  or  Mind  of  Nature],  there 
is  nothing  to  prevent  a  person  (7.  e.  a  human  soul],  who 
remembers  —  what  men  call  learning  —  only  one  thing, 
from  again  discovering  all  the  rest ;  if  he  has  but  courage, 
and  seeking  faints  not."  2  In  short,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind,  that  the  Philosophia  Prima,  as  it  were,  in  advance, 
dealt  with  the  whole  state  of  knowledge  previously  existing, 
in  which  was  included  both  the  metaphysical  philosophy  of 
Plato,  which,  proceeding  by  the  dialectic  method  of  pure 
scientific  thinking,  learning  all  things  from  one,  and  arriving 
at  a  philosophy  of  the  universe  by  that  way,  and  also  the 
philosophy  of  Democritus,  Leucippus,  and  Aristotle,  which 
rather  from  the  beginning  turned  round  and  confronted 
nature  face  to  face,  and  began  to  search  out  a  philosophy 
of  the  universe,  in  that  direction,  by  pursuing  the  paths 
and  methods  of  physical  inquiry.  And  so,  Bacon  having 
for  himself  arrived,  in  the  first  instance,  at  a  philosophy  of 
the  universe,  in  his  own  mind,  by  the  Platonic  method,  and, 

l  Scaling  Ladder,  lb.  XIV.  426;  Spedd.,  V.  180. 
3  Meno,  Works  of  Plato,  (Bohn),  HI.  20. 


340  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

after  the  example  of  Plato's  great  disciple,  Aristotle,  seeing 
that  the  best  way  for  the  advancement  of  knowledge,  the 
invention  of  new  sciences,  arts,  and  instruments,  for  the 
instruction,  benefit,  and  uses  of  mankind  in  general,  was, 
to  follow  that  example,  to  begin  where  Democritus  left  off, 
and  pursue  the  same  direction  and  course  of  investigation, 
confronting  Nature  face  to  face,  as  it  were,  diligently  set 
himself  to  work  in  good  earnest  to  revive,  correct,  purify, 
renew,  instaurate,  and  re-invigorate,  both  the  degenerated 
and  perverted  Platonism,  and  the  degenerated  and  per- 
verted Aristotelianism  of  his  own  time  and  all  the  later 
ages  next  preceding.  But  now,  having  in  the  second  and 
third  parts  plunged  into  and  traversed  the  woodlands  of 
mere  physical  nature,  amidst  foliage,  thorns,  and  briers, 
and  having  begun  to  advance  from  the  woods  to  the  foot 
of  the  mountains  and  that  same  hill  of  the  Muses,  he  would, 
in  this  Fourth  Part,  begin  to  ascend  by  the  double  road  of 
active  and  actual  human  life,  and  climbing  with  scaling 
ladders  of  the  intellect,  and  threading  the  labyrinth  of  the 
civil,  social,  and  moral  fabric,  would  endeavor,  at  last,  to 
reach  the  uppermost  elevations  and  highest  tops  of  things, 
in  the  magnificent  temple,  palace,  city,  and  hill  of  the  fabled 
descendants  of  Neptune,  the  vertex  of  Pan's  Pyramid,  and 
the  cliff  of  Plato  ;  from  which  height,  no  man  should  any 
further  leading  need. 

So  much  we  learn  from  himself  concerning  this  curious 
Fourth  Part.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  what  else  was  meant 
than  something  of  this  kind,  by  these  examples  or  types 
and  models ;  and  considering  what  the  entire  scope  of  his 
philosophical  scheme  was,  the  nature  of  the  whole  discus- 
sion in  these  particular  fragments,  and  the  express  declara- 
tion that  true  art  was  always  capable  of  advancing,  the 
conclusion  would  seem  to  be  well  warranted,  that  at  the 
date  at  which  the  Scaling  Ladder  was  written,  something 
of  this  kind  was  running  in  his  mind,  and  that  we  actually 
have  in  these  plays  what  he  had  himself  done  towards  this 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  341 

important  part  of  the  Great  Installation  of  all  philos- 
ophy. 

At  the  same  time,  it  is  not  necessarily  to  be  inferred  that 
the  plays,  when  written,  were  designed  actually  to  form  this 
Fourth  Part.  It  may  be,  that,  in  his  original  plan,  this  part 
of  the  systematic  Instauration  was  to  have  been  written  in 
prose  with  something  of  the  same  rigid  investigation  and 
scientific  precision  as  the  other  parts,  but  upon  the  same 
general  subject  of  the  passions  and  affections,  the  mental 
powers  and  faculties,  human  character,  civil  and  social 
affairs,  and  man  and  humanity  in  general ;  but  that  for 
want  of  time  to  complete  it  in  that  form,  he  had,  later  in 
life,  concluded  to  publish  this  Folio  of  1623,  together  with 
the  Essays  and  other  writings  of  a  civil  and  moral  nature, 
and  leave  them  to  fill  up  this  gap  in  the  Great  Instauration, 
in  such  manner  and  with  such  effect  as  they  could.  The 
Instauration  was  indeed  the  work  of  his  whole  life  ;  but  the 
finished  parts  of  it  rather  belong  to  his  later  years.  The 
Advancement  was  in  some  measure  a  preliminary  work, 
and  it  took  the  form  of  the  De  Augmentis  before  becoming 
a  part  of  the  Great  Instauration  in  1 623,  and  all  the  other 
parts  were  wholly,  or  chiefly,  written  after  the  period  of  the 
plays,  and  towards  the  close  of  his  career.  So,  while  the 
plays  may  have  been  written,  as  they  doubtless  were,  under 
a  natural  and  genuine  poetic  feeling  and  impulse,  and  even 
with  a  design  to  rival  the  ancient  poets  in  the  field  of 
dramatic  art,  and  with  the  general  purpose  of  veiling  his 
braver  instruction  to  mankind  under  the  poetic  form  of 
delivery,  after  the  manner  of  all  great  poets,  they  are.  in 
fact,  at  the  same  time,  found  to  be  pervaded  with  the  whole 
spirit  and  scope  of  his  philosophy  ;  and  they  may  be  safely 
taken  as  actual  models  and  true  illustrative  examples  of  his 
method  in  that  kind. 

This  view  may  find  some  special  confirmation  in  the 
following  passages  from  the  De  Augmentis,  which  are  de- 
serving of  careful  study  in  reference  to  certain  prominent 


342  ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES. 

features  in  the  character  of  these  plays  ;  for  in  their  general 
nature  and  scope  they  more  especially  concern  the  regimen, 
discipline,  culture,  and  cure  of  the  mind  in  respect  of  indi- 
vidual, social,  moral,  and  civil  or  public  good  ;  and  truth  to 
human  nature  and  human  character  has  always  been  noted 
as  a  peculiar  excellence  in  them.  Upon  "the  different 
characters  of  natures  and  dispositions"  this  work  proceeds 
thus : — 

"  And  we  are  not  here  speaking  of  the  common  inclina- 
tions either  to  virtues  or  vices,  but  of  those  which  are  more 
profound  and  radical.  And  in  truth  I  cannot  sometimes  but 
wonder  that  this  part  of  knowledge  should  for  the  most 
part  be  omitted  both  in  Morality  and  Polity,  considering  it 
might  shed  such  a  ray  of  light  on  both  sciences.  In  the 
traditions  of  astrology  men's  natures  and  dispositions  are 
not  unaptly  distinguished  according  to  the  predominances 
of  the  planets  ;  — 

['  a  breath  thou  art. 
Servile  to  all  the  skyey  influences 
That  dost  this  habitation  where  thou  keep'st 
Hourly  inflict.'  —  Meas.for  M.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1.] 

For  some  are  naturally  formed  for  contemplation,  others 
for  business,  others  for  war,  others  for  advancement  of 
fortune,  others  for  love,  others  for  the  arts,  others  for  a 
varied  kind  of  life;  so  among  the  poets  (heroic,  satiric, 
tragic,  comic)  are  everywhere  interspersed  representations 
of  characters,  though  generally  exaggerated  and  surpassing 
the  truth.  .  .  . 

"  Not  however  that  I  would  have  these  characters  pre- 
sented in  ethics  (as  we  find  them  in  history  or  poetry  or 
even  in  common  discourse),  in  the  shape  of  complete  indi- 
vidual portraits,  but  rather  the  several  features  and  simple 
lineaments  of  which  they  are  composed,  and  by  the  various 
combinations  and  arrangements  of  which  all  characters 
whatever  are  made  up,  showing  how  many,  and  of  what 
nature  these  are,  and  how  connected  and  subordinate  one 


ILLUSTRATIVE  EXAMPLES.  343 

to  another  ;  that  so  we  may  have  a  scientific  and  accurate 
dissection  of  minds  and  characters,  and  the  secret  dispositions 
of  particular  men  may  be  revealed  ;  and  that  from  the  knowl- 
edge thereof  better  rules  may  be  framed  for  the  treatment 
of  the  mind. 

"And  not  only  should  the  characters  of  dispositions  which 
are  impressed  by  nature  be  received  into  this  treatise,  but 
those  also  which  are  imposed  on  the  mind  by  sex,  by  age, 
by  region,  by  health  and  sickness,  by  beauty  and  deformity, 
and  the  like  ;  and  again,  those  which  are  caused  by  fortune, 
as  sovereignty,  nobility,  obscure  birth,  riches,  want,  magis- 
tracy, privacy,  prosperity,  adversity,  and  the  like.  For  we 
see  that  Plautus  makest  it  a  wonder  to  see  an  old  man 
beneficent :  His  beneficence  is  that  of  a  young  man." 

And  so,  in  the  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  in  which  these 
ideas  and  doctrines  are  in  part  and  very  admirably  exem- 
plified, the  Duke  says  :  — 

"  Angelo  had  never  the  purpose  to  corrupt  her;  only  he  hath  made  an 
assay  of  her  virtue,  to  practise  his  judgment  with  the  disposition  of natures.  .  . 
The  assault  that  Angelo  hath  made  to  you,  fortune  hath  conveyed  to  my 
understanding ;  and,  but  that  frailty  hath  examples  for  his  falling,  /  should 
wonder  at  Angela."  —  Act  111.  Sc.  1. 

He  next  proceeds  to  those  "  affections  and  perturbations 

of  the  mind,  which  are,  as  I  have  said,  the  diseases  of  the 

mind  " :  — 

"  Claud.    Has  he  affections  in  him, 
That  thus  can  make  him  bite  the  law  by  th'  nose, 
When  he  would  force  it?  "  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

"  But  to  speak  the  real  truth,"  he  continues,  "  the  poets 
and  writers  of  history  are  the  best  doctors  of  this  knowl- 
edge, where  we  may  find  painted  forth  with  great  life  and 
dissected,  how  affections  are  kindled  and  excited,  and  how 
pacified  and  restrained,  and  how  again  contained  from  act 
and  further  degree  :  — 

["  hnb.    Ay!  just:  perpetual  durance:  a  restraint  — 
Though  all  the  world's  vastidity  you  had  — 
To  a  dutermiu'd  scope."  —  lb.  Act  111.  Sc.  1.] 


344  THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT. 

ho*'  they  disclose  themselves  though  repressed  and  con- 
cealed ;  how  they  work  ;  how  they  vary  ;  how  they  are  en- 
wrapped one  within  another ;  how  they  fight  and  encounter 
one  with  another ;  and  many  other  particularities  of  this 
kind ;  amongst  which  this  last  is  of  special  use  in  moral 
and  civil  matters  ;  how  I  say,  to  set  affection  against  affec- 
tion, and  to  use  the  aid  of  one  to  master  another;  like 
hunters  and  fowlers  who  use  to  hunt  beast  with  beast,  and 
catch  bird  with  bird  : "  '  —  as  we  may  find  it  illustrated  in 
this  same  play,  and,  indeed,  in  many  others  of  this  author, 
in  such  style,  manner,  and  diction  as  to  leave  no  room  for 
doubt  of  his  identity. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  work  to  undertake  by  any 
complete  analysis,  or  anything  like  a  thorough  exposition 
of  the  nature,  scope,  and  drift  of  the  several  plays,  to 
show  in  what  manner  and  to  what  extent  the  object  and 
intent  of  these  illustrative  examples,  or  models,  have  been 
accomplished  in  them ;  nor  to  consider  of  their  merits  as 
works  of  art  In  the  two  sections  following,  some  demon- 
stration will  be  given  out  of  the  "As  You  Like  It,"  and  the 
"  Timon  of  Athens,"  as  models  and  instances,  first,  that  these 
plays  were  in  fact  written  by  Francis  Bacon ;  and  second, 
that  they  do  really  answer  the  purpose  supposed,  in  a  very 
admirable  manner.  More  than  this  might  require  another 
book. 

§  2.   THE   AS   YOU   LIKE    IT A   MODEL. 

The  comedy  of  "  As  You  Like  It "  appears  to  have  been 
written  about  the  year  1600,  and  before  any  of  the  works 
of  Bacon  with  which  it  will  be  compared  were  published, 
viz. :  the  Advancement,  the  Intellectual  Globe,  the  Natural 
History,  the  History  of  Life  and  Death,  and  the  De  Aug- 
ments. Shakespeare  could  have  drawn  nothing  for  this 
play  from  these  works  of  Bacon  :  nor  would  Bacon   have 

i  Trans,  of  De  Aug.,  by  Spedding,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  219-221. 


THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT.  345 

need  to  learn  anything  from  William  Shakespeare,  touching 
the  parts  of  philosophy  therein  illustrated. 

In  the  main,  this  play  is  a  story  of  love  and  friendship, 
with  some  slight  exhibition  of  the  accidents  of  fortune,  into 
which  the  more  important  matters  and  topics  are.  as  it  were, 
collaterally  and  incidentally  interwoven.  The  plot  is  taken 
from  Dr.  Lodge's  novel  of  "  Rosalynd,  or  Euphues'  Golden 
Legacy,"  but  nothing  of  the  more  distinguishing  features, 
or  more  notable  instruction,  is  drawn  from  that  source  ;  and 
the  characters  of  Jaques,  Audrey,  and  the  Clown,  are  wholly 
new.  The  author  himself  speaks  more  especially  in  the 
melancholy  Jaques,  in  Touchstone,  the  motley-minded  gen- 
tleman, and  in  Rosalind,  instructed  of  the  "  great  magician  " ; 
and  the  old  man  Adam  furnishes  occasion  for  the  discourse 
of  Jaques  on  the  Seven  Ages,  with  a  distinct  touch  of  the 
History  of  Life  and  Death.  In  the  garb  of  the  motley  fool, 
Touchstone,  who  is  but  another  specimen  of  a  "  Jove  in  a 
thatch'd  house,"  that 

"  hath  strange  places  cramui'd 
With  observation,  the  which  he  vents 
In  mangled  forms," 

lies  concealed  and  (as  it  were  in  ambush)  the  "  natural  phi- 
losopher "  himself,  with  his  instances  ;  and  with  the  help  of 
Audrey,  a  mere  "  country  wench,"  he  will  get  pretty  deep 
into  the  philosophy  of  imagination  and  the  true  nature  of 
poetry  as  "  imaginations  feigned."  Rosalind,  in  the  disguise 
of  a  boy,  has  conversed  with  a  magician,  since  he  was  three 
years  old :  — 

"  Orl.    But.  my  good  lord,  this  boy  is  forest-born, 

And  hath  been  tutor' d  in  the  rudiments 

Of  many  desperate  studies  by  his  uncle, 

Whom  he  reports  to  be  a  great  magician, 

Obscured  in  the  circle  of  this  forest."  — Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

And  in  Jaques,  we  have  a  man,  who  has  got  well  out  of 
"  the  woodlands  of  nature,"  and  not  only  reached  the  foot 
of  the  mountain,  but  actually  ascended  nearly  to  the  upper- 
most elevations,  where  his  station  is  serene,  and  his  prospect 


346  THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT. 

delightful ;  and  though  his  "  often  rumination  "  has  gained 
him,  among  others,  the  title  of  "  the  melancholy  Jaques," 
it  only  wraps  himself  in  "  a  most  humourous  sadness."  The 
matter  lies,  for  the  most  part,  upon  "  a  more  disengaged 
but  a  more  arduous  station,"  and  in  that  part  of  u  the  double 
road  of  active  life,"  which,  though  "  steep  and  rough  "  at 
the  entrance,  becomes  "  even  and  level "  at  the  end,  ter- 
minating in  "  perfect  smoothness  "  ;  but  the  scene,  though 
not  actually  in  "  the  woods,"  now,  is  still  "  partly  in  the 
Forest  of  Arden."  Rosalind  is  banished  by  the  envious 
Duke  ;  Celia,  his  daughter,  her  loving  friend,  determines 
to  escape  with  her  cousin,  and  they  persuade  the  fool 
Touchstone  to  go  with  them  ;  and  so,  disguised,  Rosalind 
in  boy's  clothes,  Celia  in  the  dress  of  a  shepherdess,  and 
Touchstone  as  servant,  they  become  travellers  in  the 
woods :  — 

"  Ros.     Well,  this  is  the  Forest  of  Arden. 

"  Touch.  Ay,  now  am  I  in  Arden :  the  more  fool  I !  When  I  was  at 
home,  I  was  in  a  better  place:  but  travellers  must  be  content." — Act  II. 
8c.  4. 

Remembering  that  the  road  traversing  "  the  woodlands  " 
was  overshadowed  as  by  foliage,  and  perplexed  and  en- 
tangled with  thorns  and  briers,  and  that  one  branch  of  the 
double  road  conducted  the  traveller  to  places  precipitous 
and  impassable,  we  may  just  notice,  that  the  dialogue  be- 
tween Celia  and  Rosalind,  in  the  beginning,  turns  upon  the 
condition  of  their  estates ;  but,  says  Rosalind,  "  Fortune 
reigns  in  gifts  of  the  world,  not  in  the  lineaments  of  nature  ;" 
and  they  soon  discover  that  these  "  paths  of  contemplation  " 
are  beset  with  thorns  and  briers,  thus  :  — 

"  Ros.     O,  how  full  of  briars  is  this  working-day  world ! 

Cel.  They  are  but  burs,  cousin,  thrown  upon  thee  in  holiday  foolery;  if 
we  walk  not  in  the  trodden  paths,  our  very  petticoats  will  catch  them."  — 
Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

So  Bacon  says  :  — 

"  Diligence  and  careful  preparation  remove  the  obstacles  against  which 
the  foot  would  otherwise  stumble,  and  smooth  the  path  before  it  is  entered ; 


THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT.  347 

but  he  who  is  sluggish  and  defers  everything  to  the  last  moment  of  execu- 
tion must  needs  walk  every  step  as  it  were  amidst  briars  and  thorns,  which 
catch  and  stop  him." —  Tr.  of  De  Aug.,  IX.  Spedd.  (Boston),  257. 

And  Orlando,  groping  with  old  Adam  in  this  u  uncouth 

forest,"  almost  dead  "  for  food,"  meeting  the  Duke,  speaks 

thus:  — 

"  Orl.    Speak  you  so  gently?  Pardon  me,  I  pray  you: 
I  thought  that  all  things  had  been  savage  here ; 
And  therefore  put  I  on  the  countenance 
Of  stern  commandment.    But  whate'er  you  are 
That  in  this  desert  inaccessible, 
Under  the  shade  of  melancholy  boughs, 
Lose  and  neglect  the  creeping  hours  of  time ;  — 


You  touch'd  my  vein  at  first:  the  thorny  point 
Of  bare  distress  hath  ta'en  from  me  the  shew 
Of  smooth  civility :  yet  am  I  inland  bred, 
And  know  some  nurture."  — Act  11.  Sc.  7. 


Things  here  were  steep,  rough,  thorny,  overshadowed 
with  foliage  and  melancholy  boughs,  and  rather  precipitous 
and  impassable  to  the  traveller. 

Orlando  introduces  the  old  man  Adam  thus :  — 

"  There  is  an  old  poor  man, 
Who  after  me  hath  many  a  weary  step 
Limp'd  in  pure  love;  till  he  be  first  suffic'd, 
(Oppress'd  with  two  weak  evils,  age  and  hunger,) 
I  will  not  touch  a  bit."  —  Act  11.  Sc.  7. 

And  while  he  is  gone  to  find  him  out,  the  Duke  and  Jaques 
enter  into  that  famous  and  very  sage  discourse  upon  the 
Seven  Ages  of  the  life  of  man,  taking  a  wide  and  deep  view 
of  the  subject.     The  Duke  begins  thus  :  — 

"  Duke  8.    Thou  seest  we  are  not  all  alone  unhappy : 

This  wide  and  universal  theatre 

Presents  more  woful  pageants  than  the  scene 

Wherein  we  play  in." 

Jaques,  who  has  already  climbed  by  regular  succession  the 
height  of  things  to  a  station  serene,  where  he  has  a  prospect 
of  the  order  of  nature  and  the  errors  of  men.  on  this  uni- 
versal theatre,  and  has  been  a  traveller  through  the  univer- 
sal variety,  proceeds  to  deliver  himself  of  his  latest  con- 


348  THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT. 

templation  on  the  ages  of  man,  in  the  following  manner, 
which  may  be  compared  with  the  Essay  of  the  Vicissitude 
of  Things  (first  printed  in  1625),  which  was  derived  in  part 
from  the  History  of  Life  and  Death,  namely  :  — 

"  In  the  youth  of  a  state  arms  do  flourish ;  in  the  middle  age  of  a  state, 
learning ;  and  then  both  of  them  together  for  a  time ;  in  the  declining  age 
of  a  state,  mechanical  arts  and  merchandize.  Learning  hath  its  infancy, 
when  it  is  almost  childish ;  then  its  youth,  when  it  is  luxuriant  and  juvenile ; 
then  its  strength  of  years,  when  it  is  solid  and  reduced  ["  scilidiores  tt 
exactiores "] ;  and  lastly,  its  old  age,  when  it  waxeth  dry  and  exhaust 
[" postremo  senectus  earum  obrepit,  cum  sicca  et  exhaustce  fiunt,  manente 
tamen  gamditate'1''] ;  but  it  is  not  good  to  look  too  long  upon  these  turning 
wheels  of  vicissitude,  lest  we  become  giddy." 

Take,  now,  the  speech  of  Jaques,  with  the  passages  in- 
terspersed by  way  of  commentary,  thus  :  — 

"  Jaq.  All  the  world  's  a  stage, 

And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players: 
They  have  their  exits  and  their  entrances; 
And  one  man  in  his  time  plays  many  parts,  — 
His  Acts  being  seven  ages." 
[There  were  four  ages  of  a  state.    "  Meanwhile,  the  mind  also  hath  cer- 
tain periods,  but  they  cannot  be  described  by  years."  — Hist,  of  Life  and 
Death. 
"  While  states  and  empires  pass  many  periods."  —  Masque. 
"  While  your  life  is  nothing  but  a  continual  acting  upon  a  stage."  —  Ibid.] 

"  At  first,  the  Infant, 
Mewling  and  puking  in  his  nurse's  arms: 
And  then,  the  whining  School-boy,  with  his  satchel 
And  shining  morning  face,  creeping  like  snail 
Unwillingly  to  school  " :  — 
["  Learning,  too,  hath  its  infancy " ;   .   .   .  "  then  its  youth,  when  it  is 
luxuriant  and  juvenile." 

"  The  ladder  of  man's  body  is  this,  to  be  conceived,  ...  to  suck,  to  be 
weaned,  to  feed  upon  pap."  —  Hist,  of  Life  and  Death.] 

"  And  then  the  Lover, 
Sighing  like  furnace,  with  a  woful  ballad 
Made  to  his  mistress'  eyebrow :    Then  a  Soldier, 
Full  of  strange  oaths  and  bearded  like  the  pard ; 
Jealous  in  honour,  sudden  and  quick  in  quarrel, 
Seeking  the  bubble  Reputation 
Even  in  the  cannon's  mouth :    And  then  the  Justice, 
In  fair  round  belly  with  good  capon  lin'd ; 
With  eyes  severe  and  beard  of  formal  cut, 


THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT.  349 

Full  of  wise  saws  and  modern  instances,  — 
And  so  he  plays  his  part  " :  — 
[ —  "  then  succeeds  the  manly  age,  when  it  becomes  more  solid  and  ex- 
act," says  the  Latin.] 

"  The  sixth  age  shifts 
Into  the  lean  and  slipper'd  Pantaloon, 
With  spectacles  on  nose  and  pouch  on  side ; 
His  youthful  hose  well  sav'd,  a  world  too  wide 
For  his  shrunk  shank ;  and  his  big  manly  voice, 
Turning  again  toward  childish  treble,  pipes 
And  whistles  in  his  sound  " :  — 
[ — "  and  lastly,  its  old  age,  when  it  waxeth  dry  and  exhaust,"  or,  as  the 
Latin  reads,  *  Lastly,  its  old  age  creeps  on,  when  it  becomes  dry  and  ex- 
haust, garrulity  only  remaining."] 

"Last  scene  of  all, 
That  ends  this  strange  eventful  history, 
Is  second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion; 
Sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  —  everything." 

Act  II.  Sc.  7. 
["  But  it  is  not  good  to  look  too  long  upon  these  turning  wheels  of  vicissi- 
tude, lest  we  become  giddy."] 

Here,  there  is  resemblance  in  the  thought,  manner,  and 
word,  but  not  any  absolute  identity  :  the  similitude  is  rather 
distant  and  remote,  as  we  should  expect  to  find  it  in  writings 
so  different  in  character,  even  the  subject  being  not  the 
same.  As  will  be  seen,  the  Latin  translation  comes  nearer 
to  the  very  language  of  the  poetry  than  the  English  original 
of  the  Essay  ;  and  upon  a  close  study,  it  is  pretty  evident 
that,  in  the  scientific  study  of  the  "  Differences  of  Youth 
and  Old  Age,"  and  in  the  "  History  of  Life  and  Death," 
may  be  found  the  actual  first  origin  of  both  the  poetry  and 
the  prose.  The  general  ideas  are  certainly  very  similar, 
the  difference  of  the  subject  in  the  Essay  necessarily  occa- 
sioning some  variations  and  omissions  of  particulars.  The 
manner  is  nearly  the  same  in  both,  and  the  turn  of  expres- 
sion, and  use  of  words,  is  alike  in  both  ;  as  for  instance,  the 
words  creep,  manly  voice  and  manly  age,  severe  and  exact, 
garrulity  and  childish  treble,  this  strange  eventful  history  and 
the  turning  wheels  of  vicissitude.  And  then  we  have  the 
same  order  and  succession  of  the  like  ideas  as  far  as  they 


850  THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT. 

go,  with  that  difference  of  diction,  and  greater  amplitude, 

which  the  nature  of  the  subject,  the  exigencies  of  verse,  and 

the  poetic  style  demanded. 

Jaques  exhibits  a  very  remarkable  liking  for  the  fool 

Touchstone,  — 

"  Who  laid  him  down,  and  bask'd  him  in  the  sun, 
And  rail'd  on  Lady  Fortune  in  good  terms, 
In  good  set  terms,  —  and  yet  a  motley  fool ; "  — 

but  when  he  heard  him  moralize  upon  the  time,  he  laughed 
a  whole  hour  by  his  dial,  — 

"  That  Fools  should  be  so  deep-contemplative." 

And  well  he  might ;  for  this  fool's  brain  is  crammed  with 
observation,  his  head  is  full  of  instances,  and  he  appears, 
like  many  of  this  author's  fools,  to  have  much  knowledge 
in  many  arts,  though  "  ill-inhabited  " :  — 

"Jaq.    This  is  the  motley-minded  gentleman,  that  I  have  so  often  met  in 
the  forest:  he  hath  been  a  courtier  he  swears. 

Touch.    If  any  man  doubt  that,  let  him  put  me  to  my  purgation." 

Then  follows  a  sharp  piece  of  satirical  criticism  upon  Vin- 
centio  Saviolo's  code  of  honor ;  but  what  is  more  particularly 
to  be  noted  in  this  connection  is,  that  the  moralizing  Jaques, 
who  understands  so  well  the  many  parts  which  man  plays 
on  the  universal  theatre,  considering  the  wisdom  "  which  he 
vents  in  mangled  forms,"  is  ready  to  exclaim  :  — 

"Jaq.  0,  that  I  were  a  Fool ! 

I  am  ambitious  for  a  motley  coat. 

Duke  S.    Thou  shalt  have  one. 

Jaq.  It  is  my  only  suit: 

Provided  that  you  weed  your  better  judgments 
Of  all  opinion  that  grows  rank  in  them, 
That  I  am  wise.    I  must  have  liberty 
Withal,  as  large  a  charter  as  the  wind, 
To  blow  on  whom  I  please :  for  so  fools  have."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  7. 

Here  is  certainly  a  very  good  reason  why  this  author  should 
be  so  much  in  the  habit  of  putting  the  profoundest  conclu- 
sions of  his  philosophy  into  the  mouths  of  his  clowns  and 
fools ;  and  in  a  larger  view,  it  may  have  been  for  a  some- 


THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT.  351 

what  similar  reason  that  such  a  writer  should  choose  the 
dramatic  form  of  delivery  for  the  purpose  of  communicat- 
ing his  braver  instruction  to  mankind.  In  that  age, 
especially,  he  needed  liberty ;  and  his  Genius  must  have 
the  air  of  Freedom  :  — 

"Jaq.  Give  me  leave 

To  speak  my  mind,  and  I  will  through  and  through 
Cleanse  the  foul  bodj'  of  th'  infected  world, 
If  they  will  patiently  receive  my  medicine."  —  Act  IT.  Sc.  7. 

Touchstone  proceeds  with  the  shepherd,  Corin,  thus :  — 

"  Touch.    Hast  any  philosophy  in  thee,  shepherd  ? 

Cor.  No  more,  but  that  I  know,  the  more  one  sickens,  the  more  at  ease 
he  is ;  and  that  he  that  wants  money,  means,  and  content,  is  without  three 
good  friends :  That  the  property  of  rain  is  to  wet,  and  fire  to  burn :  That 
good  pasture  makes  fat  sheep ;  and  that  a  great  cause  of  the  night  is  lack 
of  the  sun :  That  he  that  hath  learned  no  wit  by  Nature,  nor  Art,  may  com- 
plain of  good  breeding,  or  comes  of  a  very  dull  kindred. 

Touch.    Such  a  one  is  a  natural  philosopher."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

Next,  the  dispute  on  good  manners  and  the  manners  of 
courtiers  and  shepherds  winds  up  with  a  challenge   for 
instances :  — 
" Touch.    Instance,  briefly;  come,  instance."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  this  is  followed  by  a  call  for  "  a  better  instance,"  "  a 
more  sounder  instance,"  and  "a  mended  instance,"  very 
much  after  the  manner  of  our  natural  philosopher  him- 
self:— 

"Jaq.  Is  not  this  a  rare  fellow,  my  lord?  he 's  as  good  at  anything,  and 
yet  a  Fool. 

Duke  S.  He  uses  his  folly  like  a  stalking-horse,  and  under  the  presenta- 
tion of  that,  he  shoots  his  wit." 

So  says  Bacon  to  Essex,  "  You  discourse  well  Quid  igitur 
agendum  est  f  I  will  shoot  my  fool's  bolt,  since  you  will 
have  it  so." 

Jaques  had  been  a  traveller,  too,  and  his  sadness  was  of 
a  peculiar  kind :  — 

"Ros.    They  say  you  are  a  melancholy  fellow. 
Jaq.    I  am  so:  I  do  love  it  better  than  laughing." 


352  THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT. 

Rosalind  thinks  all  such  must  be  "  abominable  fellows,"  but 
Jaques,  that  it  is  "  good  to  be  sad  and  say  nothing  " :  — 

"Bos.  Why  then  it  is  good  to  be  a  post."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 
This  may  remind  the  critical  reader  of  Bacon's  discussion 
of  individual  good  or  happiness,  which  might  consist  in  a 
certain  "equality"  of  things,  or  in  "variety  and  vicissi- 
tude," or  in  both ;  and  he  alludes  to  the  controversy 
between  Socrates  and  the  Sophist,  in  which  Socrates  main- 
tained that  happiness  consisted  in  a  constant  peace  of 
mind  and  tranquillity ;  but  the  Sophist,  that  it  consisted  in 
having  an  appetite  for  much  and  in  enjoying  much.  The 
Sophist  said,  that  Socrates'  happiness  was  that  of  "  a  post 
or  a  stone  "  ("  stipitis  vel  lapidis  ")  1 ;  and  Socrates,  that  the 
Sophist's  happiness  was  that  of  a  man  that  had  the  itch 
("scabiosi"),  who  was  perpetually  itching  and  scratching; 
and  this  last  breaks  out,  again,  in  another  place,  thus  :  — 

"Marches.    What 's  the  matter,  you  dissentious  rogues, 
That  rubbing  the  poor  itch  of  your  opinion, 

Make  yourselves  scabs  ? Who  deserves  greatness 

Deserves  your  hate ;  and  your  affections  are 
A  sick  man's  appetite,  who  desires  most  that 
Which  would  increase  his  evil."  —  Cor.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Jaques  answers  :  — 

"I  have  neither  the  Scholar's  melancholy,  which  is  emulation;  nor  the 
Musician's,  which  is  fantastical;  nor  the  Courtier's,  which  is  proud;  nor 
the  Soldier's,  which  is  ambitious;  nor  the  Lawyer's,  which  is  politic;  nor 
the  Lady's,  which  is  nice ;  nor  the  Lover's,  which  is  all  these :  but  it  is  a 
melancholy  of  mine  own,  compounded  of  many  simples,  extracted  from 
many  objects,  and,  indeed,  the  sundry  contemplation  of  my  travels,  in 
which  my  often  rumination  wraps  me  in  a  most  humourous  sadness. 

Eos.    A  traveller ! 

Jaq.    Yes;  I  have  gained  my  experience."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

Very  like  the  philosopher,  who  had  found  "  the  different 
characters  of  natures  "  omitted  in  "  Morality  and  Policy," 
but  thought  there  might  be  something  of  truth  in  the  tradi- 
tions of  astrology  and  the  predominances  of  the  planets  : 
for,  as  we  remember,  "  some  are  naturally  formed  for  con- 

i  Be  Aug.,  Lib.  VII.  ;  (Boston),  III.  24. 


THE  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT.  353 

templation,  others  for  business,  others  for  war,  others  for 
advancement  of  fortune,  others  for  love,  others  for  the  arts, 
others  for  a  varied  kind  of  life  "  ;  as  had  been  represented 
among  the  poets,  heroic,  satiric,  tragic,  and  comic. 

And  a  traveller  he  was,  no  doubt,  this  "  Monsieur  Trav- 
eller," through  the  universal  variety,  to  whom,  in  his  ele- 
vated station  on  the  mountain  top,  the  common  affairs  and 
most  ordinary  compliments  of  mankind  below,  were  so  sadly 
amusing,  that,  on  the  whole,  they  might  even  be  compared 
to  "  the  encounter  of  two  dog-apes."  Nevertheless,  he  had 
a  fellow-feeling  for  the 

—  "  poor  sequester' d  stag, 
That  from  the  hunter's  aim  had  ta'en  a  hurt," 

and  came  to  languish  by 


"  the  brook  that  brawls  along  this  wood;  .  .  .  . 

—  and,  indeed,  my  lord, 

The  wretched  animal  heav'd  forth  such  groans 
That  their  discharge  did  stretch  his  leathern  coat 
Almost  to  bursting ;  and  the  big  round  tears 
Coursed  one  another  down  his  innocent  nose 
In  piteous  chase :  and  thus  the  hairy  fool, 
Much  mark'd  of  the  melancholy  Jaques, 
Stood  on  the  extremest  verge  of  the  swift  brook, 
Augmenting  it  with  tears. 

Duke  S.  But  what  said  Jaques? 

Did  he  not  moralize  this  spectacle  ? 

1  Lord.    0,  yes,  into  a  thousand  similes. 
First,  for  his  weeping  into  the  needless  stream ; 
'  Poor  deer,'  quoth  he,  '  thou  mak'sl  a  testament 
As  worldlings  do,  giving  thy  sum  of  more 
To  that  which  had  too  much:    Then,  being  there  alone, 
Left  and  abandon'd  of  his  velvet  friends; 
"  T  is  right,'  quoth  he ;  '  this  misery  doth  part 
The  flux  of  company:    Anon,  a  careless  herd, 
Full  of  the  pasture,  jumps  along  by  him. 
And  never  stays  to  greet  him.    '  Ay,'  quoth  Jaques, 
' Sweep  on,  you  fat  and  greasy  citizens  ; 
'  T  is  just  the  fashion :    Wherefore  do  you  look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there  t ' 
Thus  most  invectively  he  pierceth  through 
The  body  of  the  country,  city,  court, 
Tea,  and  of  this  our  life."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 
23 


354  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

But  the  road,  in  this  model,  is  to  come  out  "  even  and 
level "  at  the  end,  being  the  one  of  "  the  two  moral  ways  " 
of  the  old  parable,  beginning  with  incertainty  and  difficulty 
and  ending  in  plainness  and  certainty "  (  Valer.  Term.  ch. 
19) ;  and  so,  all  terminates  in  perfect  smoothness  by  the 
skill  of  the  great  magician  :  — 

"Ro$.    I  have  promised  to  make  all  this  matter  even. 
Keep  jrou  your  word,  O  Duke,  to  give  your  daughter;  — 
You  yours,  Orlando,  to  receive  his  daughter :  — 
Keep  you  your  word,  Phebe,  that  you  '11  marry  me, 
Or  else,  refusing  me,  to  wed  this  shepherd :  — 
Keep  your  word,  Silvius,  that  you  '11  marry  her, 
If  she  refuse  me :  —  and  from  hence  I  go, 
To  make  these  doubts  all  even 

Hymen.    Then  is  there  mirth  in  Heaven, 
When  earthly  things  made  even 
Atone  together."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

At  last,  the  usurping  Duke 

"  hath  put  on  a  religious  life, 
And  thrown  into  neglect  the  pompous  Court. 

Jaq.    To  him  will  I :  out  of  these  convertites 
There  is  much  matter  to  be  heard  and  learned."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

This  final  disposition  of  the  melancholy  Jaques,  whose 
prospect  had  become  so  sadly  humorous  and  so  serenely 
delightful,  is  in  fair  keeping  with  Bacon's  vision  of  the 
highest  state  of  things  in  the  island  of  Bensalem,  in  the 
New  Atlantis,  on  beholding  which  the  Strangers,  who  had 
arrived  there,  imagined  they  saw  before  their  eyes  "  a 
picture  of  their  own  salvation  in  heaven  "  ;  and  his  betak- 
ing himself,  at  last,  to  "  these  convertites,"  and  devoting 
himself  to  a  religious  life,  may  recall  to  mind  what  has  been 
reported  of  one  of  the  rarest  and  most  humorously  sad 
men  of  learning  of  our  time,  that  now,  in  his  later  days,  he 
finds  his  chiefest  solace  in  the  "  Acta  Sanctorum." 

§   3.   THE   TIMON   OF   ATHENS  —  A   MODEL. 

Of  the  "  Timon  of  Athens,"  nothing  appears  to  be  known, 
until  it  was  printed  in  the  Folio  of  1623.     The  story  of 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  355 

Timon  was  one  of  the  traditional  popular  tales  of  ancient 
times.  It  is  briefly  alluded  to,  in  Plutarch's  Life  of  Antony  ; 
but  scarcely  anything  more  than  the  circumstance  of  the 
inscription  upon  the  tomb  of  Timon  and  the  bare  names  of 
Alcibiades  and  Apemantus,  which  are  not  found  in  Lucian, 
appear  to  have  been  taken  from  Plutarch  ;  while  the  char- 
acter of  Apemantus  was  evidently  founded  upon  the 
Thrasycles  of  Lucian's  dialogue.  Shakespeare  could  have 
derived  but  little  help  from  North's  Plutarch,  and  Bacon 
was  undoubtedly  well  acquainted  with  both  Plutarch  and 
Lucian  in  the  original  Greek.  In  the  Essay  of  Goodness, 
he  alludes  to  the  anecdote  of  the  tree  as  told  in  Plutarch, 
and  speaks  of  '*  misanthropi,  that  make  it  their  practice  to 
bring  men  to  the  bough,  and  yet  have  never  a  tree  for  the 
purpose  in  their  gardens,  as  Timon  had."  Plutarch  refers 
to  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes  and  to  Plato  for  the  story 
of  Timon  ;  but  the  larger  part  of  the  borrowed  materials 
for  this  play  was  certainly  drawn  from  Lucian.  In  Aris- 
tophanes,1 as  in  Plato,  there  is  no  more  than  a  bare  allusion 
to  the  story.  Bacon  is  known  to  have  been  familiar  with 
these  authors,  neither  of  which  had  been  translated  (so  far 
as  known  at  this  day)  until  after  the  time  of  Shakespeare. 
The  similitudes  with  his  writings  are  most  apparent  in  those 
parts  of  the  story  which  vary  from  the  account  of  Plutarch, 
or  were  not  derived  from  him.  The  circumstance  of  Timon's 
finding  great  sums  of  gold,  while  digging  with  a  spade, 
must  have  been  taken  from  Lucian.  It  is  pretty  certain 
that  the  play  never  made  any  figure  upon  the  stage,  in  the 
lifetime  of  Shakespeare,  if  indeed  it  had  ever  appeared  at 
all  before  it  was  printed ;  for  there  is  no  certain  mention 
of  it  on  record  prior  to  that  date.  Yet  it  is  one  of  the  most 
masterly  works  of  the  great  poet,  not  so  much  for  display 
upon  the  stage,  but  as  implying  the  largest  wisdom,  a 
matured  experience,  and  a  most  profound  philosophy  of 
human  life.     Even  on  the  supposition  that  the  old  play  of 

1  Auaiorpon),  805-828. 


356  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

that  name  was  an  early  sketch  of  this  author,  it  would 
necessarily  follow,  that  it  had  been  taken  up  again  at  a 
later  period  of  his  life,  and  had  been  carefully  re-written  in 
the  maturity  of  his  powers.  This  play,  more  strongly  than 
almost  any  other  in  the  series,  bears  upon  its  face  the  im- 
press and  character  of  Bacon's  mind.  It  is  even  probable 
that,  in  respect  of  the  sentiments  and  feeling  exhibited  in 
some  parts  of  it,  something  may  have  been  derived  from 
the  later  experience  and  fortunes  of  his  own  life  ;  when  he 
was  himself  a  fallen  lord,  abandoned  by  troops  of  trencher- 
friends,  yet  attended  by  faithful  stewards  even  in  his  worst 
misfortunes ;  when  he  had  gone  to  a  cell,  and  become  a 
cloistered  friar  in  Gray's  Inn,  and  was  gathering  up  the 
wrecks  and  remnants  of  his  ruined  estates,  but  when  he 
appeared  in  public,  still  showing  a  handsome  equipage  and 
a  numerous  retinue,  "  scorning  to  go  out  in  a  snuff,"  said 
Prince  Charles,  when  he  met  him  in  full  trim  on  the  road ; 
when  he  had  been  fleeced  (according  to  Mr.  Meautys),  first, 
of  York  House,  and  then  of  one  valuable  estate  after 
another ;  but  to  a  proposal  for  the  sale  of  his  forest  at 
Gorhambury,  indignantly  answering,  "  I  will  not  be  stript 
of  my  feathers,"  —  like  another  Lear,  insisting  upon  his  full 
hundred,  — 

"  0,  reason  not  the  need :  our  basest  beggars 
Are  in  the  poorest  thing  superfluous; 
Allow  not  nature  more  than  nature  needs ; 
Man's  life  is  cheap  as  beast's; "  — 

when  he  had  himself  become  an  experienced  witness  of  the 
vanities  of  great  place,  the  iniquities  of  "  the  yellow  slave," 
gold,  the  hollowness  of  all  outward  show  of  worldly  great- 
ness, and  the  essential  worthlessness  of  all  these  to  a  great 
soul,  as  Lucian  says  : —  "  Nothing  of  all  this  being  at  all 
necessary  to  a  good  man  and  one  able  to  see  the  wealth  of 
philosophy  "  — ;  and  when  he  had  become  still  more  pro- 
foundly sensible  of  the  dark  clouds  of  error  and  superstition 
and  all  manner  of  false  opinion  and  belief,  which  like  that 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  357 

old  incubus,  "  the  brooding  wing  of  Night,"  hung  lowering 
as  ever  over  society  and  all  human  affairs.  He  had  been 
a  learned  critic  in  literature,  a  scientific  student  of  nature, 
and  a  comprehensive  and  very  profound  philosopher,  and 
he  had  now  become  a  wise  man,  a  seer,  a  prophet,  and 
certainly  one  of  the  greatest  of  poets. 

Still  bearing  in  mind  what  has  been  said  of  these  illus- 
trative examples,  we  shall  have  occasion,  also,  to  remember 
that  pattern  of  a  natural  story,  and  model  of  an  institution 
"  for  the  interpreting  of  nature,  and  the  production  of  great 
and  marvellous  works  for  the  benefit  of  men,"  in  the  New 
Atlantis.  Solomon's  House,  which  was  instituted  "  for  the 
finding  out  of  the  true  nature  of  all  things,  whereby  God 
might  have  the  more  glory  in  the  workmanship  of  them," 
and  which  was  to  be  "  the  noblest  foundation  that  ever  was 
upon  the  earth,"  and  "  the  eye  "  and  "  the  lantern  of  this 
kingdom,"  is  introduced  with  an  allusion  to  the  poetical 
fable  of  "  the  inhabitants  of  the  great  Atlantis,"  who  were 
"  the  descendants  of  Neptune,"  with  their  "  magnificent 
temple,  palace,  city,  and  hill ;  and  the  manifold  streams  of 
goodly  navigable  rivers,  which,  as  so  many  chains,  environed 
the  same  site  and  temple ;  and  the  several  degrees  of 
ascent,  whereby  men  did  climb  up  the  same,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  Scala  Coeli."  This  island,  moreover,  was  "  a  land 
of  magicians."  There  was  in  it,  too,  "  something  super- 
natural, but  yet  rather  as  angelical  than  magical."  And  it 
is  further  said :  "  God  surely  is  manifested  in  this  land." 
Said  the  Strangers,  on  arriving  there,  "  It  seemed  to  us, 
that  we  were  come  into  a  land  of  angels." 

Let  it  be  observed,  also,  that  there  was,  in  this  island, 
*  a  most  natural,  pious,  and  reverend  custom  of  the  feast 
of  the  family,"  showing  the  nation  to  be  "  compounded  of 
all  goodness."  The  strangers  who  had  arrived  there,  went 
abroad  to  see  "  the  city  and  places  adjacent,"  and  made 
the  acquaintance  of  many  "  not  of  the  meanest  quality." 
The  people  were  full  of  "  piety  and  humanity,"  and  for 


358  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

"  chastity,"  this  nation  was  "  the  virgin  of  the  world."  In 
their  own  country,  "  such  humanity  "  was  never  seen.  There 
was  no  "  confusion  "  among  this  people.  Their  "  manners 
and  conditions "  were  well-ordered.  Indeed,  "  if  there  be 
a  mirrour  of  the  world  worthy  to  hold  men's  eyes,  it  is  that 
country."  It  was  granted  to  the  father  of  a  family  of  thirty 
persons,  called  the  Tirsan,  to  make  "  a  feast "  at  the  cost 
of  the  state.  He  is  assisted  by  "  the  governor,"  and  also 
"  taketh  three  of  such  friends  as  he  liketh  to  choose."  The 
persons  of  the  family  are  summoned  to  attend.  Two  days 
the  Tirsan  sits  in  "  consultation  concerning  the  good  estate 
of  the  family."  Order  is  taken  for  the  relief  of  the  dis- 
tressed and  decayed,  and  "  competent  means  to  live  "  are 
provided  for  them.  Vice  and  ill-courses  are  censured. 
They  have  "  no  stews,  no  dissolute  houses,  no  courtezans, 
nor  anything  of  that  kind."  Direction  is  given  "  touching 
marriages."  Marriage,  "  without  consent  of  parents,"  they 
"  mulct  in  the  inheritors."  There  is  not  "  such  chastity  in 
any  people  "  :  and  they  say,  "  That  whosoever  is  unchaste 
cannot  reverence  himself"  :  and  they  say,  "  That  the  rev- 
erence of  a  man's  self  is,  next  religion,  the  chiefest  bridle 
of  all  vices."  The  "  orders  and  decrees  "  of  the  Tirsan  are 
obeyed :  "  such  reverence  and  obedience  they  give  to  the 
o:*der  of  nature." 

At  the  feast,  the  Tirsan  comes  forth  from  divine  service 
into  "  the  large  room  where  the  feast  is  celebrated,"  and 
takes  his  chair  of  state  on  a  raised  "  half-pace,"  at  the  upper 
end.  All  the  lineage  place  themselves  around  "  against  the 
wall,"  and  the  room  below  the  half-pace  is  full  of  company, 
f  the  friends  of  the  family."  On  the  sides  are  tables  for  the 
guests  that  are  bidden.  A  herald  takes  in  his  hand  a  scroll, 
which  is  the  king's  charter  containing  gift  of  revenue,  and 
many  privileges,  exemptions,  and  points  of  honor,  directed 
"  To  such  a  one  our  well  beloved  friend  and  creditor."  And 
there  is  an  acclamation,  "  Happy  are  the  people  of  Ben- 
salem  ! "     Toward  the  end  of  dinner,  hymns  of  "  excellent 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  359 

poesy  "  are  sung ;  and  "  dinner  being  done,"  the  Tirsan 
calls  out  two  of  his  "  sons  of  eminent  merit  and  virtue," 
and  bestows  on  each  "  a  jewel,"  which  they  ever  after 
u  wear  in  the  front  of  their  turban  or  hat."  This  done, 
"  they  fall  to  music  and  dances  and  other  recreations."  So 
much  for  the  feast,  which  may  be  compared  a  little,  below, 
with  "  the  feast  of  Lord  Timon." 

Now,  turning  to  the  play,  the  scene  is  "  Athens ;  and 
the  woods  adjoining."  For,  in  this  model,  we  are  to  emerge 
from  the  woods,  again,  to  "  the  foot  of  the  mountains,"  and 
thence,  to  ascend  toward  the  height  of  things  in  "  the  com- 
monwealth of  Athens  "  ;  in  which  we  shall  see,  also,  "  how 
the  culture  and  cure  of  the  mind  of  man "  depend  upon 
"  points  of  nature  "  and  "  points  of  fortune."  *  The  first  act 
opens  with  a  scene,  in  which  the  poet,  the  painter,  the 
merchant,  the  jeweller,  and  the  philosopher,  are  brought 
upon  the  stage  together,  and  the  principal  topic  seems  to 
be  our  very  subject  here,  namely,  "  true  art"  Each  one 
brings  an  offering  of  service  to  the  great  Lord  Timon.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  dialogue,  the  ideas  and  expressions 
which  are  used  so  forcibly  call  to  mind,  not  only  the  teach- 
ings of  Bacon  on  poesy,  nature,  and  art,  but  also  the  man- 
ner and  diction  of  the  Dedication  and  Preface  to  the  Folio 
of  1623,  as  to  raise  a  strong  suspicion,  at  least,  that  both 
were  written  by  the  same  hand  and  at  about  the  same  time. 
Compare  the  sentences  as  follows :  — 

"Act  I.  Sc.  1.    Athens.    A  Hall  in  Timon's  Howe. 

Poet.  How  goes  the  world  ? 

Paint    It  wears,  sir,  as  it  grows. 

Poet.  Ay,  that 's  well  known; 

But  what  particular  rarety  ?  what  strange, 
Which  manifold  record  not  matches? 

["Whilst  we  study  to  be  thankful  in  our  particular."  —  Bed.] 

Mer.    O,  't  is  a  worthy  lord. 

Jew.  Nay,  that's  most  nx'd. 

i  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Bk.  n. 


360  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

Mer.    A  most  incomparable  man;  breath' d,  as  it  were, 
To  an  untirable  and  continuate  goodness :  — 

["  To  the  most  noble  and  incomparable  paire  of  brethren, and 

our  singular  good  lords."  —  Ded. 

"  A  king  of  incomparable  clemency,  and  whose  heart  is  inscrutable  for 
wisdom  and  goodness."  —  Submission.] 

Paint.    You  are  rapt,  sir,  in  some  work,  some  dedication 
To  the  great  lord." 

["  And  while  we  name  them  trifles,  we  have  deprived  ourselves  of  the 
defence  of  our  dedication."  —  Ded.] 

Poet.  A  thing  slipp'd  idly  from  me. 

Our  poesy  is  as  a  gum,  which  oozes 
From  whence  't  is  nourished :  The  fire  i'  the  flint 
Shews  not,  till  it  be  struck ;  our  gentle  flame 
Provokes  itself,  and,  like  a  current,  flies 
Each  bound  it  chafes.    What  have  you  there  ? 

["  Country  hands  reach  forth  milke,  creame,  fruits,  as  what  they  have ; 
and  many  Nations  (we  have  heard)  that  had  not  gummes  and  incense, 
obtained  their  request  with  a  leavened  cake."  — Ded. 

Lucian's  Timon  reads  :  — 

"  I  come  to  bring  you  a  new  song  of  the  lately-taught  dithyrambics."  * 

"There  were  under  the  Law  (excellent  King)  both  daily  sacrifices  and 
free-will  offerings."  —  Ded.  of  the  Adv.] 

Paint.    A  picture,  sir.    And  when  comes  your  book  forth  ? 
Poet.    Upon  the  heels  of  my  presentment,  sir. 
Let 's  see  your  piece. 

["  It  hath  been  the  highest  of  our  care,  who  are  the  Presenters,  to  make 
the  present  worthy  of  your  Highnesses  by  the  perfection."  —  Ded. 

"  In  like  manner  there  belongeth  to  kings  from  their  servants  both  tribute 
of  duty  and  presents  of  affection."  — Ded.  of  the  Adv.] 

Paint.  'T  is  a  good  piece. 

Poet.    So  't  is ;  this  comes  off  well,  and  excellent. 

Paint.    Indifferent. 

Poet.  Admirable!    How  this  grace 

Speaks  his  own  standing ;  what  a  mental  power 
This  eye  shoots  forth ;  how  big  imagination 
Moves  in  this  lip;  to  the  dumbness  of  the  gesture 
One  might  interpret. 

[If  he  were  a  good  "  interpreter  of  nature  " :  and  "  if  it  be  true  that  the 
principal  part  of  beauty  is  in  decent  motion."  — Essay.] 

1  Luciani  Opera  (Tauchnitz,  Lipsiae,  1858,)  I.  30. 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  361 

Paint.    It  is  a  pretty  mocking  of  the  life. 
Here  is  a  touch;  Is 't  good? 

Poet.  I  '11  say  of  it, 

It  tutors  nature :  artificial  strife 
Lives  in  these  touches,  livelier  than  life. 

[ —  "(for  I  must  ascribe  your  commendation  to  affection,  being  above  my 
merit,)  as  I  must  do  contrary  to  that  that  painters  do;  for  they  desire  to 
make  the  picture  to  the  life,  and  I  must  endeavour  to  make  the  life  to  the 
picture."  —  Letter,  1619. 

—  "as  if  art  were  some  different  thing  from  nature,  and  artificial  from 
natural."  —  Adv. 

"  But  because  there  be  so  many  good  painters,  both  for  hand  and  colours, 
it  needeth  but  encouragement  and  instructions  to  give  life  unto  it"  — 
Letter  to  Chan. 

—  "  Who,  as  he  was  a  happie  imitator  of  nature,  was  a  most  gentle  ex- 
presser  of  it."  — Ded.~\ 

Tim.    Good  morrow  to  thee,  gentle  Apemantus !  " 

There  are  some  indications  in  this  play  that  the  "  gentle 
Apemantus,"  under  the  covert  garb  of  a  "  churlish  philos- 
opher," was  rather  intended  to  speak,  under  cover,  for  the 
"  gentle  Shakespeare  "  himself.  "  "What  Shakespeare's 
thoughts  on  God,  Nature,  and  Art,  would  have  been,"  says 
Carlyle,  "  especially  had  he  lived  to  number  fourscore 
years,  were  curious  to  know."  Most  certainly  so ;  but, 
in  the  course  of  this  play,  assuredly,  something  may  be 
gathered,  by  close  inspection,  as  to  what  were  the  ideas 
of  the  author  on  some  points  in  art  and  philosophy ;  and 
they  seem  to  have  a  remarkable  agreement,  in  respect  of 
some  particulars  of  idea  and  expression,  with  Bacon's 
notions  on  the  subject,  as  may  be  seen  in  this  passage  from 
the  Essay  of  Beauty  (1612)  :  — 

"  In  beauty,  that  of  favour  is  more  than  that  of  colour  ; 
and  that  of  decent  and  gracious  motion  more  than  that  of 
favour.  That  is  the  best  part  of  beauty,  which  a  picture 
cannot  express  ;  nor  the  first  sight  of  life.  There  is  no 
excellent  beauty  that  hath  not  some  strangeness  in  the 
proportion.  A  man  cannot  tell  whether  Apelles  or  Al- 
bert Durer  were  the  more  trifler ;  whereof  the  one  would 


362  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

make  a  personage  by  geometrical  proportions ;  the  other, 
by  taking  the  best  parts  out  of  divers  faces  to  make  one 
excellent.  Such  personages,  I  think,  would  please  nobody 
but  the  fainter  that  made  them.  Not  but  I  think  a  painter 
may  make  a  better  face  than  ever  was ;  but  he  must  do  it 
by  a  kind  of  felicity  (as  a  musician  that  maketh  an  excel- 
lent air  in  music),  and  not  by  rule.  A  man  shall  see  faces, 
that  if  you  examine  them  part  by  part,  you  shall  find  never 
a  good  ;  and  yet  altogether  do  well.  If  it  be  true  that  the 
principal  part  of  beauty  is  in  decent  motion,  certainly  it  is 
no  marvel  though  persons  in  years  seem  many  times  more 
amiable." 

Understanding  that  Apemantus  contemplated  the  uni- 
verse, as  it  is  herein  supposed  that  Bacon  himself  did,  as 
the  actual  thought  of  a  Creative  Thinker,  and  as  essentially 
and  to  the  very  bottom  Artist-Mind  work,  and  that  the 
highest  beauty  is  in  life  and  motion,  there  may  be  dis- 
covered in  this  scene  a  profound  opinion  of  the  true  nature 
of  the  highest  art :  — 

"  Tim.     How  Hkest  thou  this  picture,  Apemantus  ? 
Apem.    The  best,  for  the  innocence. 
Tim.    Wrought  he  not  •well,  that  painted  it? 
Apem.    He  wrought  better  that  made  the  painter ; 
And  yet  he 's  but  a  filthy  piece  of  work."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

This  remark,  apparently  so  very  cynical,  and  perhaps 
intended  so  to  appear  on  the  surface,  may  find  a  deeper 
interpretation  by  the  light  of  another  very  cynical  philoso- 
pher :  "  Do  you  think  those  who  make  senseless  and  mo- 
tionless statues  are  more  to  be  wondered  at  than  those  who 
make  active  and  intelligent  living  animals  ?  No,  by  Ju- 
piter ;  since  these  are  made,  not  by  chance,  but  by  intel- 
lect." x  Other  poets  followed  the  "  customary  fashion  "  and 
men's  opinions :  he  followed  the  order  of  divine  provi- 
dence, the  truth  of  nature,  that  true  art  which  is  always 
capable  of  advancing,  and  his  own  opinions  :  — 

1  Xen.  Mem.  Socratis,  Lib.  I.  c  4. 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  363 

"Apem.  Yes,  he  is  worthy  of  thee,  and  to  pay  thee  for  thy  labor:  he  that 
loves  to  be  flattered  is  worthy  o'  the  flatterer.    Heavens,  that  I  were  a  lord !  " 

Here,  too,  is  his  opinion  of  the  mere  man  of  traffic :  — 

"  Apem.    Traffic  confound  thee,  if  the  gods  do  not ! 
Her.    If  traffic  do  it,  the  gods  do  it. 
Apem.    Traffic 's  thy  god,  and  thy  god  confound  thee ! " 

This  merchant  may  remind  us  of  the  merchant  Jew  in 
the  New  Atlantis,  with  this  difference,  that,  here,  it  is  the 
man  whose  god  is  traffic,  but  there,  it  is  "  the  good  Jew." 

The  play  continues  thus  :  — 

"  Tim.    How  dost  thou  like  this  jewel,  Apemantus? 
Apem.    Not  so  well  as  plain  dealing,  which  will  not  cost  a  man  a  doit. 
Tim.    What  dost  thou  think  't  is  worth  ? 
Apem.    Not  worth  my  thinking."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Timon  has  not  yet  emerged  from  those  mines  and  caves, 
where  gold  and  jewels  are  the  chief  treasure.  Apemantus 
would  seem  to  have  reached  the  uppermost  elevations  of 
nature  and  those  "  tops  of  mountains,"  where  the  serenity 
'of  his  contemplations  was  not  to  be  disturbed  by  any  con- 
sideration of  such  low  things.  And  here,  again,  we  have 
this    philosopher's    judgment   on    ostentatious   piety    and 

prayer  :  — 

"  Apem.    Immortal  gods,  I  crave  no  pelf; 
I  pray  for  no  man  but  myself." 

To  some,  this  might  appear  to  be  in  the  highest  degree 

impious,  as  Timon  thought  another  saying  of  the  churlish 

philosopher  to  be  "  a  lascivious  apprehension  " ;  to  which 

Apemantus  replies :  — 

"  So  thou  apprehend'st  it.    Take  it  for  thy  labour." 

Or,  by  possibility,  it  might  put  them  in  mind  of  another 
more  modern  philosopher,  likewise  suspected  of  being 
somewhat  cynical,  who  seems  to  have  apprehended  many 
things  differently  from  the  common  way  ;  for,  being  of  the 
same  opinion,  doubtless,  that  this  author  was,  when  he  made 
the  Duke  in  the  disguise  of  "  power  divine  "  say,  "  there  is 
so  great  a  fever  on  goodness,  that  the  dissolution  of  it  must 


36-4  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

cure  it,"  so  he  says :  "  There  is  no  odor  so  bad  as  that 
which  arises  from  goodness  tainted.  If  I  knew  for  a  cer- 
tainty that  a  man  was  coming  to  my  house  with  the  con- 
scious design  of  doing  me  good,  I  should  ran  for  my  life."  * 
So  Apemantus  seems  to  have  thought  a  man  had  enough 
to  do  to  pray  for  himself;  and  perhaps,  also,  he  had  that 
reverence  for  himself,  which  is,  "  next  religion,  the  chiefest 
bridle  of  all  vices,"  and  such  chastity  as  was  never  seen 
anywhere  else  than  in  the  island  of  Bensalem. 

All  this  is  made  subservient  to  the  introduction  of  the 
main  subject  of  the  play,  the  character  of  Lord  Timon  and 
the  changes  of  fortune,  which  the  poet  is  made  to  an- 
nounce as  the  subject  of  that  very  work  which  he  had 
come  to  dedicate  to  the  great  lord  ;  as  if  the  author  himself 
would  speak  in  character.  And  we  may  say  of  this  piece 
as  the  poet  said  to  the  picture,  — 

—  "  to  the  dumbness  of  the  gesture, 
One  might  interpret." 

It  is  announced  thus :  — 

"Poet.    I  have  in  this  rough  work  shap'd  out  a  man, 
Whom  this  beneath  world  doth  embrace  and  hug 
With  amplest  entertainment 

Paint.    How  shall  I  understand  you  ? 

Poet.  I  '11  unbolt  to  you. 

You  see  how  all  conditions,  how  all  minds 
(As  well  of  glib  and  slippery  creatures,  as 
Of  grave  and  austere  quality)  tender  down 
Their  services  to  Lord  Timon :  his  large  fortune, 
Upon  his  good  and  gracious  nature  hanging, 
Subdues  and  properties  to  his  love  and  tendance 
All  sorts  of  hearts ;  — 
["  A  noble  man  and  of  much  worth,"  says  Lucian.] 

—  yea  from  the  glass-fac'd  flatterer 
To  Apemantus,  that  few  things  loves  better 
Than  to  abhor  himself:  even  he  drops  down 
The  knee  before  him,  and  returns  in  peace 
Most  rich  in  Timon's  nod."  —  Act  1.  Sc.  1. 

There  is  to  be  some  "  steep  and  rough "  work  in  the 
i  Thoreau's  Walden,  80. 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  365 

woods  among  "  thorns  and  briers,"  not  levelled  particularly ; 
but  a  survey  is  to  be  taken  of  "  all  conditions  "  ;  and  even 
Apemantus  is  constrained  to  drop  the  knee  before  the 
great  lord,  as  did  the  other  philosopher,  who  said :  "  I  come 
with  my  pitcher  to  Jacob's  well  as  others  do." 
The  poet  continues  :  — 

"  Sir,  I  have  upon  a  high  and  pleasant  hill, 
Feign'd  Fortune  to  be  thron'd :  the  base  o'  the  mount 
Is  rank'd  with  all  deserts,  all  kinds  of  natures,  — 

[that  is  to  say,  all  *  characters  of  natures  and  dispositions," 
hitherto  too  much  omitted  in  Morality  and  Policy,]  — 

That  labour  on  the  bosom  of  this  sphere 
To  propagate  their  states :  amongst  them  all, 
Whose  eyes  are  on  this  sovereign  lady  fix'd, 
One  do  I  personate  of  Lord  Timon's  frame; 
Whom  Fortune  with  her  ivory  hand  wafts  to  her; 
Whose  present  grace  to  present  slaves  and  servants 
Translates  his  rivals. 

Paint.                         'T  is  conceiv'd  to  scope. 
This  throne,  this  Fortune,  and  this  hill,  methinks, 
With  one  man  beckon'd  from  the  rest  below, 
Bowing  his  head  against  the  sleepy  mount 
7b  climb  his  happiness,  would  be  well  express'd 
In  our  condition 

Poet.    When  Fortune,  in  her  shift  and  change  of  mood, 
Spurns  down  her  late  belov'd,  all  his  dependants, 
Which  labour'd  after  him  to  the  mountain's  top. 
Even  on  their  knees  and  hands,  let  him  slip  down, 
Not  one  accompanying  his  declining  foot 

Paint.  'T  is  common : 

A  thousand  moral  paintings  I  can  show 
That  shall  demonstrate  these  quick  blows  of  fortune, 
More  pregnantly  than  words." 

Surely,  this  "  high  and  pleasant  hill,"  this  "  steepy 
mount,"  ranked  with  all  deserts  and  all  kinds  of  natures  at 
the  base,  and  "  this  mountain's  top,"  which  all  that  labor  on 
the  bosom  of  this  sphere  seek  to  climb  in  search  of  happi- 
ness, can  be  no  other  than  that  same  hill  of  the  Muses, 
and  those  "  tops  of  mountains,"  which  the  traveller,  on  "  the 
steep  and  rough,"  or  "  the  even  and  level,"  road  of  active 


THE  TIMON   OF  ATHENS. 

life,  was  to  "  climb  by  regular  succession,  with  persevering 
and  indefatigable  patience,"  and  by  the  "  several  degrees 
of  ascent,  as  if  it  had  been  a  Scala  Coeli,"  before  he  should 
reach  a  serene  station  on  the  height  of  things ;  and  these 
"  paths  of  contemplation,"  placed  thus  visibly  before  the 
eyes  in  a  kind  of  representative  speaking  picture,  exhibit- 
ing "  the  whole  process  of  the  mind  and  the  continuous 
frame  and  order  of  discovery  "  in  the  given  subject,  may 
be  taken  as  an  example  of  the  new  method,  which  those 
"  types  and  models  "  were  to  illustrate  ;  and  this  is  that  use 
of  poetry  that  "  tendeth  to  demonstrate  and  illustrate  that 
which  is  taught  or  delivered,"  as  by  "  a  thousand  moral 
paintings." 

Timon  was  not  one  of  those  who  had  reached  the  moun- 
tain's top,  but  only  "  a  more  disengaged  and  arduous 
station  "  towards  the  foot,  and  was  still  boicing  his  head 
against  the  steepy  mount.  But  the  poet  himself  had  at- 
tained that  uppermost  elevation,  and  was  able  to  look  down 
upon  him  from  that  high  cliff  and  platform,  which  is  more 
amply  sketched  in  the  Essay  of  Truth,  thus :  — 

"  The  poet  that  beautified  the  sect  that  was  otherwise 
inferior  to  the  rest,  saith  yet  excellently  well :  '  It  is  a  plea- 
sure to  stand  upon  the  shoi'e,  and  to  see  ships  tossed  upon  the 
sea  ;  a  pleasure  to  stand  in  the  window  of  a  castle,  and  to  see 
a  battle  and  the  adventures  thereof  below :  but  no  pleasure  is 
comparable  to  the  standing  upon  the  vantage  ground  of  Truth, 
(a  hill  not  to  be  commanded,  and  where  the  air  is  always 
clear  and  serene,)  and  to  see  the  errors  and  wanderings,  and 
mists,  and  tempests,  in  the  vale  below '  /  so  always  that  this 
'prospect  be  with  pity,  and  not  with  swelling  or  pride."  And 
so  that  it  be  done  by  a  Solomon  of  the  New  Atlantis,  who 
wears  "  an  aspect  as  if  he  pitied  men." 

The  scene  next  shifts  upon  the  marriage  of  the  old 
Athenian's  daughter,  a  fair  maid,  bred  "  in  qualities  of  the 
best " ;  and  Lord  Timon,  like  the  Tirsan,  takes  due  care 
that  it  shall  be  a  chaste  marriage,  with  due  consent  of 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  367 

parents,  and  ample  provision  is  made  for  Lucilius  "  to  build 
his  fortune  "  and  make  him  "  an  equal  husband  ";  all  which 
has  a  certain  close  resemblance  to  the  manner  of  proceed- 
ing in  the  island  of  Bensalem,  where,  also,  there  were 
many,  "  not  of  the  meanest  quality." 

Next  comes  the  feast,  which  is  such  a  feast  as  could  be 
given  by  the  Lord  Timon  in  the  commonwealth  of  Athens, 
rather  than  exactly  a  "  feast  of  the  family  "  of  the  Tirsan  ; 
but  in  many  traits,  they  exhibit  a  near  relationship  of  the 
one  to  the  other.     Humanity  is  a  leading  topic  in  both :  — 

"  2  Lard.    Thou  art  going  to  Lord  Timon's  feast. 

Apem.    Ay ;  to  see  meat  fill  knaves,  and  wine  heat  fools 

1  Lord.    He 's  opposite  to  humanity.    Come,  shall  we  in, 
And  taste  Lord  Timon's  bounty?  he  outgoes 

The  very  heart  of  kindness. 

2  Lord.    He  pours  it  out;  Plutus,  the  god  of  gold, 
Is  but  his  steward 

1  Lord.  The  noblest  mind  he  carries, 

That  ever  govern'd  man."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Timon  addresses  his  company  of  friends  in  a  strain  and 
temper  worthy  of  that  "  divine  instrument,"  the  "  governor  " 
of  the  society  and  brotherhood  of  Solomon's  House,  Ape- 
mantus  (one  chosen  from  amongst  the  rest  "  to  live  in  the 
house  with  him,"  like  "  the  Son  of  the  Vine  "  in  the  New 
Atlantis.)  having  a  table  by  himself  at  one  side  "  against 
the  wall,"  thus  :  — 

"  0,  no  doubt,  my  good  friends,  but  the  gods  themselves  have  provided 
that  I  shall  have  much  help  from  you :  how  had  you  been  my  friends  else  ? 
why  have  you  that  charitable  title  from  thousands,  did  not  you  chiefly 

belong  to  my  heart? O,  you  gods,  think  I,  what  need  we  have 

any  friends,  if  we  should  ne'er  have  need  of  'em  ?  they  were  the  most  need- 
les? creatures  living,  should  we  ne'er  have  use  for  'em :  and  would  most 
resemble  sweet  instruments  hung  up  in  cases,  that  keep  their  sounds  to 

themselves We  are  born  to  do  benefits ;  and  what  better  or  properer 

can  we  call  our  own  than  the  riches  of  our  friends  ?  0,  what  a  precioua 
comfort  'tis,  to  have  so  many  like  brothers,  commanding  one  another's 
fortunes!  "  — Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Here  we  may  note  a  slight  resemblance  to  the  language 
of  the  New  Atlantis ;  for  in  Solomon's  House  there  were 


368  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

to  be  "  divers  instruments  of  music,  sweeter  than  any  you 
have  "  and  "  bells  and  rings  that  are  dainty  and  sweet." 

The  feast  being  over,  Cupid  enters  with  "  a  masque  of 
ladies,"  and  the  entertainment  ends  with  music  and  danc- 
ing, much  after  the  manner  of  the  Tirsan's  feast.  And 
the  whole  is  closed,  in  like  manner,  with  a  gift  of  jewels, 
thus:  — 

"  Tim.    The  little  casket  bring  me  hither. 

Flav.    Yes,  my  lord.     [Aside.']    More  jewels  yet! 

Tim 0,  my  friends ! 

I  have  one  word  to  say  to  you.    Look  you,  my  good  lord, 

I  must  entreat  you,  honour  me  so  much, 

As  to  advance  this  jewel;  accept  it  and  wear  it, 

Kind  my  lord." 


"Apem.    No,  I  '11  nothing ;  for  if  I  should  be  brib'd,  too,  there  would  be 

none  left  to  rail  upon  thee,  and  then  thou  would'st  sin  the  faster 

What  needs  these  feasts,  pomps,  and  vain  glories  ? 

Tim.    Nay,  an  you  begin  to  rail  on  society  once,  I  am  sworn  not  to  give 

regard  to  you 

Apem.  So ;  —  thou  wilt  not  hear  me  now ;  —  thou  shalt  not  then.  I  '11 
lock  thy  Heaven  from  thee. 

O,  that  men's  ears  should  be 

To  counsel  deaf,  but  not  to  flattery !  "  —  Act  1.  Sc.  2. 

The  Tirsan's  feast  was  a  feast  of  "  consultation "  and 
counsel ;  Timon's,  a  feast  of  flattery ;  in  which  Apemantus, 
however,  had  "  the  liberty  of  a  friend,"  according  to  what 
is  said  in  the  Essay  of  Friendship  :  "  So,  as  there  is  much 
difference  between  the  counsel  that  a  friend  giveth,  and 
that  a  man  giveth  himself,  as  there  is  between  the  counsel 
of  a  friend  and  a  flatterer ;  for  there  is  no  such  flatterer  as 
a  man's  self,  and  there  is  no  such  remedy  against  flattery 
of  a  man's  self  as  the  liberty  of  a  friend." 

There  are  some  further  traces  of  the  New  Atlantis  in 

\the  third  act,  and  particularly  in   Timon's  second  feast. 

Without  dwelling  upon  the  faithful  steward,  Flavius,  the 

"  one  honest  man,"  who,  like  Bacon's  own  faithful  steward 

and  secretary,  Meautys,  never  deserted  him,  let  us  stop  only 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  369 

to  observe,  that  in  the  second  scene  Lucius  enters  with 
■  three  strangers."  In  the  New  Atlantis,  much  is  said  of 
the  mode  of  entertaining  strangers  in  that  island  and  of  the 
"  Stranger's  House,"  in  which  all  the  sick  were  treated  with 
such  "  rare  humanity  "  and  success,  that  they  thought  them- 
selves "  cast  into  some  divine  pool  of  healing."  The  same 
subject  recurs,  at  the  end  of  the  first  scene,  with  a  some- 
what different  application,  the  opposite  view  of  humanity 
being  exhibited  in  the  play,  thus  :  — 

"Flam.    0,  may  diseases  only  work  upon 't ! 
And  when  he  is  sick  to  death,  let  not  that  part  of  nature, 
Which  my  lord  paid  for,  be  of  anj-  power 
To  expel  sickness,  but  prolong  his  hour!  "  —  Act  III.  Sc  2. 

And  when  the  strangers  offered  to  pay  for  the  many 
favours  which  had  left  them  "  confused  with  joy  and  kind- 
ness," the  answer  was :  "  What,  twice  paid ! "  for  they  called 
him  "  that  taketh  rewards  twice-paid."  So  Apemantus  con- 
sidered Timon's  bounty  to  his  friends  as  mere  bribery  ;  but 
he  would  not  himself  be  "  brib'd  too."  Furthermore,  one 
of  these  "three  strangers"  would  almost  seem  to  have 
been  acquainted  with  the  father  Tirsan,  when  he  speaks 
thus:  — 

"  1  Str.    Why  this 
Is  the  world's  soul;  and  just  of  the  same  piece 
Is  every  flatterer's  spirit.    Who  can  call  him 
His  friend,  that  dips  in  the  same  dish?  for  in 
My  knowing,  Timon  has  been  this  lord's  father, 
And  kept  his  credit  with  his  purse, 
Supported  his  estate ;  nay,  Timon's  money 
Has  paid  his  men  their  wages :  he  ne'er  drinks 
But  Timon's  silver  treads  upon  his  lips;  — 

["having  oftentimes  drank  whole  cups  with  me,"  says  Lucian.] 

3  Str.    Religion  groans  at  it. 

1  Sir But  I  perceive, 

Men  must  learn  now  with  pity  to  dispense: 

For  policy  sits  above  conscience."  — Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

The  Tirsan's  feast  was  in  some  sort  a  public  one,  and 
was  made  at  the  cost  of  the  state  ;  and  it  was  attended  by 
24 


370  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

the  governor.  The  same  idea  recurs  in  Timon's  welcome 
to  his  friends  at  the  feast  of  covered  dishes  :  — 

"  Make  not  a  city  feast  of  it,  to  let  the  meat  cool  ere  we  can  agree  upon 

the  first  place You  great  benefactors,  sprinkle  our  society  with 

thankfulness." 

These  were  not  the  "  wise  men  of  the  Society  of  Solomon's 
House,"  but  Timon's  curse  upon  them  savors  strongly  of 
the  "  Stranger's  House,"  and  of  the  healing  of  the  sick 
therein,  though  in  quite  the  opposite  manner,  thus :  — 

"  Tim.  This  is  Timon's  last; 

Who,  stuck  and  spangled  you  with  flatteries, 
Washes  it  off,  and  sprinkles  in  your  faces 

[  Throwing  water  in  their  faces. 
Your  reeking  villainy.    Live  loath'd,  and  long, 
Most  smiling,  smooth,  detested  parasites, 
Courteous  destroyers,  affable  wolves,  meek  bears ; 
You  fools  of  fortune,  trencher-friends,  time's  flies, 
Cap  and  knee  slaves,  vapours,  and  minute-jacks  ! 

["  Again  therefore  I  depart,  and  will  deliver  you  up  to  parasites  and  flat- 
terers and  courtezans;  — .  .  .  rewarding  you  as  flatterers  and  wolves," 
reads  Lucian.] 

Of  man  and  beast  the  infinite  malady 

Crust  you  quite  o'er!  — what,  dost  thou  go? 

Soft,  take  thy  physic  first  —  thou  too,  —  and  thou.  — 

[  Throws  the  dishes  at  them. 

Henceforth,  be  no  feast, 

Whereat  a  villain 's  not  a  welcome  guest. 
Burn,  house !  sink,  Athens !  henceforth  hated  be 
Of  Timon,  man  and  all  humanity.'''' 

["  For  I  will  hate  all  gods  and  men  at  once,"  Timon  says,  in  Lucian.] 

And  at  the  close  of  the  scene,  the  lord,  who  had  advanced 
the  jewel  to  his  "  turban  or  hat"  (as  it  appears)  as  in  the 
New  Atlantis,  speaks  thus  :  — 

"  3  Lord.  He  gave  me  a  jewel  the  other  day,  and  now  he  has  beat  it  out 
of  my  hat :  —  Did  you  see  my  jewel  ?  "  —  Act  111.  Sc.  6. 

Here,  let  it  be  noted,  also,  that,  in  the  Advancement, 
Bacon  speaks  of  "  the  gross  and  palpable  flattery,  whereunto 
many  not  unlearned  have  abased  and  abused  their  wits  and 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  371 

pens,"  and  of  "  those  trencher-philosophers,  which  in  the 
later  age  of  the  Roman  State  were  usually  in  the  houses 
of  great  persons,  being  little  better  than  solemn  parasites  ; 
of  which  kind  Lucian  maketh  a  merry  description  "  ;  and 
this  is  certainly  decisive  evidence  that  Bacon  as  well  as  the 
author  of  the  play  had  studied  Luciau. 

In  Timon  we  have  the  man,  who,  having  traversed  the 
woodlands  of  nature,  and  emerged  into  the  more  disengaged 
but  more  arduous  paths  of  contemplation,  pursues  that 
branch  of  the  double  road  of  active  life,  which  is  at  first 
"  even  and  level,"  but  conducts  to  "  places  precipitous  and 
impassable."  In  Apemantus,  on  the  other  hand,  is  repre- 
sented the  man,  who  rather  chooses  the  way  which  is  "  steep 
and  rough  at  the  entrance,"  but  with  certain  "  fixed  princi- 
ples "  and  "  indefatigable  patience,"  enduring  to  suspend  his 
judgment,  will  mount  gradually,  and  "climb  by  regular 
succession  "  the  height  of  things  in  the  commonwealth  of 
Athens.  Timon,  having  met  with  a  precipitous  fall,  takes 
back  to  the  region  of  thorns  and  briers,  "  without  the  walls 
of  Athens,"  breaking  forth  in  a  terrible  outburst  of  wrath 
upon  the  "  confusions  "  of  society,  thus  :  — 

"  Piety  and  fear, 
Religion  to  the  gods,  peace,  justice,  truth, 
Domestic  awe,  night  rest,  and  neighborhood, 
Instruction,  manners,  mysteries,  trades, 
Degrees,  observances,  cubtoms,  and  laws, 
Decline  to  your  confounding  contraries, 
And  let  confusion  live !  "  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

Confusion  is  a  favorite  idea  and  word  with  this  writer. 
"  Is  there  any  such  happiness,"  says  Bacon,  "  as  for  a  man's 
mind  to  be  raised  above  the  confusion  of  things,  where  he 
may  have  a  prospect  of  the  order  of  nature  and  the  errors 
of  men  ?  "  and  again,  "  as  nothing  doth  derogate  from  the 
dignity  of  a  state  more  than  confusion  of  degrees."  And 
Timon  says  again,  "  Would'st  thou  have  thyself  fall  in  the 
confusion  of  men  ?  "     He  concludes  his  diatribe  on  society 


372  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

with  this  desperate  resolution  :  "  Timon  will  to  the  woods  ! " 

But,  in  Lucian,  "  he  only  leaves  the  city  in  disgust,  and 

works  for  hire  on  a  farm,  brooding  darkly  over  his  evils." 

The  third  scene  opens  in  "  the  woods."     Timon  is  in  close 

communion  with  physical  nature.    Among  thorns  and  briers, 

the  path  is  far  from  being  even  and  level,  or  straight  and 

smooth :  — 

"  Tim.  All  is  oblique ; 

There  's  nothing  level  in  our  cursed  natures, 
But  direct  villainy."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  By  reason  of  the  ways  of  nature  being  partly  straight, 
and  partly  oblique,"  says  the  De  Augmentis  ;  and  the  ex- 
pression seems  to  have  been  borrowed  from  Sophocles :  — 

Kpemi'.   .   .   .   iravra.  yap 

Aexpia.  —  Antigone,  1344-5. 

He  digs  for  roots  and  finds  gold.  While  cutting  up  roots, 
he  throws  up  treasure  with  his  spade,  "digging,  I  think, 
where  it  had  been  buried,"  says  Lucian.  He  prefers  roots, 
but  will  take  "  some  gold  "  for  his  purposes  :  — 

"  Tim.  "  Earth,  yield  me  roots !  .  .  .  [Digging. 

I  am  misantkropos,  and  hate  mankind."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  And  let  Misantkropos  be  the  most  agreeable  name,"  says 
Timon  in  Lucian. 

The  first  to  present  himself  is  "  Captain  Alcibiades  with 
his  women."  There  was  no  war  in  Bensalem ;  but  mention 
is  made  of  a  holy  hermit  to  whom  "  the  spirit  of  fornication  " 
appeared  as  "  a  little  foul  ugly  xEthiop  "  ;  but  "  the  spirit 
of  chastity  "  is  described  "  in  the  likeness  of  a  fair  beautiful 
cherubin."     Timon  addresses  Alcibiades,  thus  :  — 

"  Follow  thy  drum ; 
With  man's  blood  paint  the  ground,  gules,  gules : 
Religious  canons,  civil  laws  are  cruel ; 
Then  what  should  war  be  ?    This  fell  whore  of  thine 
Hath  in  her  more  destruction  than  thy  sword, 
For  all  her  cherubin  look."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

In  the  New  Atlantis,  "  the  scroll  was  signed  with  a  stamp 
of  cherubin's  wings." 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  373 

While  yet  digging  the  earth  in  the  woods  of  nature,  his 
pride  unsubdued,  he  is  made  to  utter  forth  that  fine  view 
of  all-producing  Nature,  which  might  certainly  have  been 
inspired  by  the  Second  Philosophy  :  — 

"  Common  mother,  thou, 
Whose  womb  immeasurable,  and  infinite  breast, 
Teems,  and  feeds  all ;  whose  self-same  mettle, 
Whereof  thy  proud  child,  arrogant  man,  is  puff 'd, 
Engenders  the  black  toad  and  adder  blue, 
The  gilded  newt  and  eyeless  venom'd  worm, 
With  all  th'  abhor'd  births  below  crisp  heaven 
Whereon  Hyperion's  quickening  fire  doth  shine, 
Yield  him,  who  all  the  human  sons  doth  hate, 
From  forth  thy  plenteous  bosom,  one  poor  root ! 
Ensear  thy  fertile  and  conceptions  womb ; 
Let  it  no  more  bring  out  ingrateful  man ! 
Go  great  with  tigers,  dragons,  wolves,  and  bears ; 
Teem  with  new  monsters,  whom  thy  upward  face 
Hath  to  the  marbled  mansion  all  above 
Never  presented !  —  O,  a  root,  —  dear  thanks ! 
Dry  up  thy  marrowy  vines,  and  plough-torn  leas; 
Whereof  ingrateful  man,  with  liquorish  draughts, 
And  morsels  unctuous,  greases  his  pure  mind, 
That  from  it  all  consideration  slips."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

Next  appears  Apemantus,  who  complains,  that 

Thou  dost  i 

But  he  tells  him, 

"  This  is  in  thee  a  nature  but  infected ; 
A  poor  unmanly  melancholy,  sprung 
From  change  of  fortune.    Why  this  spade?  this  place? 

["  What  a  change!  .  .  .  bearing  thus  this  heavy  spade,"  says  Lucian.] 

Shame  not  these  woods, 
By  putting  on  the  cunning  of  a  carper, 

'T  is  most  just 

That  thou  turn  rascal ;  had'st  thou  wealth  again, 
Rascals  should  have  't    Do  not  assume  my  likeness." 

Apemantus  teaches  him  that  he  is  "  a  madman  "  to  ex- 
pect relief  for  his  miseries  in  these  "  woods,''  which 

"  To  the  conflicting  elements  exposed, 
Answer  mere  nature." 


"  Men  report, 
Thou  dost  affect  my  manners,  and  dost  use  them." 


374  THE  TDION  OF  ATHENS. 

For  no  help  is  to  be  had  there  :  — 

"  Apem.    If  thou  didst  put  this  sour-cold  habit  on 
To  castigate  thy  pride,  't  were  well." 

But  the  lesson,  which  this  philosopher,  who  had  come  to 
understand  things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  and  took  them 
for  just  what  they  were,  no  more,  no  less,  himself  having 
reached  the  serene  and  delightful  station  on  the  height  of 
things,  whence  he  could  look  down,  "  with  pity,  and  not 
with  swelling  or  pride,"  had  to  give  this  proud  misanthrope, 
that  never  knew  "  the  middle  of  humanity,"  but  only  "  the 
extremity  of  both  ends,"  and  that  therefore,  in  his  death, 
"  all  living  men  did  hate,"  was  this  :  — 

"  Apem.  Willing  misery 

Outlives  incertain  pomp,  is  crown'd  before : 
The  one  is  filling  still,  never  complete, 
The  other,  at  high  wish :  best  state,  contentless, 
Hath  a  distracted  and  most  wretched  being, 
Worse  than  the  worst,  content. 
Thou  should'st  desire  to  die,  being  miserable."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

Timon  is  furnished  from  "  the  woodlands  "  of  nature  with 
a  certain  rude  imagery  corresponding  to  the  crude  percep- 
tion which  he  had  come  to  have  of  that  necessary  "  differ- 
ence of  degrees,"  which  is  discoverable  everywhere,  and  he 
launches  into  a  discourse  on  the  comparative  evils  of  con- 
flicting qualities  in  natures,  as  of  the  lion,  the  fox,  the  ass, 
the  wolf,  the  leopard,  and  the  rest,  concluding  that,  "  all 
thy  safety  were  remotion  ;  and  thy  defence,  absence  "  :  — 

"  Apem.  If  thou  could'st  please  me  with  speaking  to  me,  thou  might'st 
have  hit  upon  it  here :  the  commonwealth  of  Athens  is  become  a  forest  of 
beasts." 

It  was  not  so,  in  "  the  feigned  commonwealth "  of  the 
island  of  Bensalem,  of  which  the  governor  was  a  man 
"  comely  of  person,  and  had  an  aspect  as  if  he  pitied  men," 
and  in  which,  reverence  and  obedience  were  given  to  "  the 
order  of  nature."  Of  such  a  man  as  Apemantus,  or  the 
Governor  of  Solomon's  House,  this  Timon  had  never  any 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  875 

just  conception,  and  they  ended  as  such  men  are  apt  to  do, 
in  all  cases,  by  calling  each  other  hard  names :  — 

"  Apem.    Beast ! 

Tim.  Slave! 

Apem.  Toad ! 

Tim.  Rogue,  rogue,  rogue!" 

"  Sick  of  this  false  world,"  Timon  would  love  naught 

"  But  even  the  mere  necessities  upon  't." 

He  retires  to  his  "  cave,"  taking  with  him  his  gold,  the 

"  visible  god, 
That  solder'st  close  impossibilities 
And  mak'st  them  kiss," 

finding  in  his  natural  philosophy  of  the  mere  necessities  of 

nature,  that  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  sea,  the  earth, 

"  each  thing  's  a  thief;  — 

and  he  advises  all  thieves,  thus  :  — 

"  Steal  not  less,  for  this 
I  give  you ;  and  gold  confound  you  howsoe'er ! "  — Act  IV.  8c.  3. 

This  cave  scene,  like  the  rest,  shows  some  traces  of  the 
Solomon's  House  of  the  New  Atlantis ;  for  there  were  to 
be  therein  certain  "  large  and  deep  mines  and  caves,  digged 
under  great  hills  and  mountains,"  which  were  to  be  called 
"  the  lower  region,"  and  were  to  be  used  for  "  the  imitation 
of  natural  mines  and  the  producing  of  new  and  artificial 
metals."  In  some  of  them,  "  hermits,"  that  chose  to  live 
there,  were  to  be  well  accommodated  with  all  things  neces- 
sary, and  indeed  live  very  long."  But  in  the  play,  the 
poets  and  painters,  who  had  turned  "  alchemysts,"  to  make 
gold,  were  summarily  driven  out  of  the  presence  even  of 
Timon. 

For  a  commonwealth  of  Athens  become  a  forest  of  beasts, 
Timon  had  no  remedy  to  propose,  but  dire  and  utter  destruc- 
tion ;  and,  indeed,  the  poet  himself  would  seem  to  have  had 
no  other  than  "  Alcibiades  and  the  Forces  "  :  — 

"  Tim.    Come  not  to  me  again ;  but  say  to  Athens, 
Timon  hath  made  his  everlasting  mansion 


376  THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS. 

Upon  the  beached  verge  of  the  salt  flood ; 

Who,  once  a  day  with  his  emboss'd  froth, 

The  turbulent  surge  shall  cover :  thither  come, 

And  let  my  grave-stone  be  your  oracle."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

This  poet  was  able  to  make  good  interpretation  and  use 

of  the  ancient  fable  of  Timon,  3fisanthropos,  taking  care  to 

follow  the  story  of  Lucian,  in  having  him 

"  Entomb'd  upon  the  very  hem  o'  the  sea  " ;  — 

that  metaphysical  and  mysterious  line,  which  serves  as  well 

to  bound  the  horizon  of  time  out  of  the  great  ocean  of 

eternity,  as  to  mark  the  limit  of  the  ascent  of  "  the  steepy 

mount "  toward  the  angelical  supernatural  heights  of  things 

in  the  everlasting  mansions  beyond.     And  Alcibiades,  at 

the  head  of  repentant  Athens,  should  be  able  to  see  thus 

much  of  thee,  O  Timon  :  — 

"  yet  rich  conceit 
Taught  thee  to  make  vast  Neptune  weep  for  aye 
On  thy  low  grave  on  faults  forgiven.    Dead 
Is  noble  Timon ;  of  whose  memory 
Hereafter  more."  — Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

Again,  Bacon,  when  his  fall  came,  induced  by  the  per- 
suasion of  Buckingham  and  the  King,  if  not  commanded  by 
some  more  forcible  appeal,  or,  perhaps,  foreseeing  that  his 
only  hope  was  in  the  King,  made  a  general  confession  and 
submission  to  the  House  of  Lords,  with  the  expectation 
that  they  would  weigh  his  fault  in  a  liberal  spirit,  and  pass 
it  over  with  some  slight  censure  only,  —  that  they  would 
be  content  to  deprive  him  of  the  seals,  and,  sparing  "  any 
further  sentence,"  would  recommend  him  to  "  his  majesty's 
grace  and  pardon."  Protesting  he  had  not  "  the  fountain 
of  a  corrupt  heart,  in  a  depraved  habit  of  taking  rewards 
to  pervert  justice,"  howsoever  he  might  "  be  frail  and  par- 
take of  the  abuses  of  the  times,"  he  nobly  resolved  not  "  to 
trick  up  an  innocency  by  cavillations,"  but  to  make  a  clear 
confession  of  the  facts  as  they  were,  being  willing  that  they 
should  speak  for  themselves  and  himself,  and  so  threw 
himself  upon  the  magnanimity  of  the  British  Senate  ;  and 


THE  TIMON  OF  ATHENS.  377 

in  that  submission,  he  invoked  the  example  of  Quintus 
Maximus  :  "  who  being  upon  the  point  to  be  sentenced,  by 
the  intercession  of  some  principal  persons  of  the  Senate, 
was  spared  "  ;  in  which  "  the  discipline  of  war  was  no  less 
established  by  the  questioning  of  Quintus  Maximus,  than 
by  the  punishment  of  Titus  Manlius."  But  the  Lords  would 
not  relent :  a  victim  was  demanded.  In  like  manner,  in 
this  play,  Alcibiades,  a  principal  senator,  becomes  "an 
humble  suitor "  to  the  "  virtues "  of  the  Athenian  Senate 
for  the  pardon  of  a  friend  of  his,  who  had 

"  stepp'd  into  the  law,  which  is  past  depth 
To  those  that  without  heed  do  plunge  into  't. 
He  is  a  man,  setting  his  fate  aside, 
Of  comely  virtues : 

Nor  did  he  soil  the  fact  with  cowardice ; 
(An  honour  in  him  which  buys  out  his  fault) 
But,  with  a  noble  fury,  and  fair  spirit, 
Seeing  his  reputation  touch'd  to  death, 
He  did  oppose  his  foe 

1  Sen.    You  cannot  make  gross  sins  look  clear: 
To  revenge  is  no  valour,  but  to  bear. 

Alcib.    My  lords,  then,  under  favour,  pardon  me, 
If  I  speak  like  a  captain :  — 

and  after  pleading  the  soldier's  valor  and  noble  spirit  in 
extenuation  of  his  offence,  he  declares  the  felon, 

Loaden  with  irons,  wiser  than  the  judge, 
If  wisdom  be  in  suffering.    O,  my  lords ! 
As  you  are  great,  be  pitifully  good. 
....  In  vain  ?  his  service  done 
At  Laceda?mon  and  Byzantium 
Were  a  sufficient  briber  for  his  life.  .  .  . 

2  Sen.    He  hath  been  known  to  commit  outrages, 
And  cherish  factions.     'T  is  inferr'd  to  us, 

His  days  are  foul,  and  his  drink  dangerous. 

1  Sen.    He  dies. 

Alcib.    Hard  fate !  he  might  have  died  in  war. 
My  lords,  if  not  for  any  parts  in  him, 
Though  his  right  arm  might  purchase  his  own  time, 
And  be  in  debt  to  none,  yet,  more  to  move  you, 
Take  my  deserts  to  his,  and  join  'em  both:  .  .  . 
If  by  this  crime  he  owes  the  law  his  life, 
Why,  let  the  war  receive 't  in  valiant  gore ; 


878  THE  TEION  OF  ATHENS. 

The  law  is  strict,  and  war  is  nothing  more.  .  .  . 

1  Sen.    We  are  for  law:  he  dies;  urge  it  no  more, 
On  height  of  our  displeasure.  .  .  . 

Alcib.    Call  me  to  your  remembrances. 

2  Sea.  What! 
Alcib.    I  cannot  think  but  your  age  has  forgot  me ; 

It  could  not  else  be,  I  should  prove  so  base, 
To  sue,  and  be  deni'd  such  common  grace. 
My  wounds  ache  at  you. 

1  Sen.  Do  you  dare  our  anger? 

'T  is  in  but  few  words,  but  spacious  in  effect: 
We  banish  thee  forever. 

Alcib.  Banish  me! 

Banish  your  dotage,  banish  usury, 
That  makes  the  Senate  ugly. 

1  Sen.    If,  after  two  days'  shine  Athens  contain  thee, 
Attend  our  weightier  judgment.  .  .  . 

Alcib.   Now  the  gods  keep  you  old  enough ;  that  you  may  live 
Only  in  bone,  that  none  may  look  on  you !  .  .  . 

Banishment! 

It  comes  not  ill;  I  hate  not  to  be  banish'd: 

It  is  a  cause  worthy  my  spleen  and  fury, 

That  I  may  strike  at  Athens." — Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

There  is  nothing  here,  perhaps,  that  can  be  specially 
noted,  more  than  the  allusion  to  "  the  discipline  of  war  "  as 
in  Bacon's  "  Submission,"  which  is  certainly  not  a  little 
remarkable,  together  with  the  general  tenor  of  the  ideas 
and  sentiment,  especially  if  they  can  be  considered  as  hav- 
ing been  imparted  to  this  play,  after  his  own  fall  and  ban- 
ishment from  London.  At  any  rate,  it  may  be  truly  said 
of  himself,  that  his  own  banishment  came  not  ill ;  for  be- 
sides that  he  had  struck,  it  is  true  that  he  continued  to 
strike,  at  Athens,  in  a  way  scarcely  to  be  dreamed  of  in 
Athens  itself  for  a  long  time  to  come  ;  nor  felt  otherwise 
than  as  the  blows  travelled  along  down  and  transverberated 
the  ages  as  they  rolled  up,  with  scarcely  diminishing  force 
of  vibration,  and  so  to  continue  until  they  shall  be  lost, 
if  ever,  in '  the  deeper  concussions  of  still  more  powerful 
strokes ;  and  every  vibration  still  sweeps  some  part  of  the 
old  Athens  into  oblivion  and  mere  fossil  bone. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PHILOSOPHICAL  EVIDENCES. 

"  God  hath  framed  the  mind  of  man  as  a  mirrour  or  glass,  capable  of  the  image 
of  the  universal  world."  — BACON. 

§    1.    BACON   A   PHILOSOPHER. 

Francis  Bacon  had  surveyed  with  the  eye  of  a  master 
the  whole  field  of  the  Greek  Philosophy,  and  had  carried 
his  studies,  beyond  almost  any  other  of  his  time  and  country, 
mto  the  deepest  profundities  of  human  thought.  Standing 
where  Plato  stood,  long  before  him,  and  Des  Cartes  and 
Leibnitz,  immediately  after  him,  essentially,  on  the  solid 
platform  of  fact  and  universal  method,  he  endeavored  to 
instaurate,  revive,  and  renew  the  higher  philosophy  as  well 
as  physical  science.  He  attempted,  not  without  great  effect, 
to  organize  the  experimental  and  inductive  method  of  in- 
quiry and  a  true  method  of  interpreting  Nature,  and  urged 
them  upon  the  consideration  of  the  world  of  science  as  the 
best,  if  not  the  only,  means  of  obtaining  that  broad  and 
sure  "  foundation "  in  observed  and  ascertained  fact,  on 
which  alone  he  considered  it  possible  to  raise,  in  an 
adequate  manner,  the  eternal  superstructure  of  philosophy 
itself,  which  he  was  also  undertaking,  as  the  chiefest  con- 
cern, to  erect  and  constitute,  or  at  least  to  initiate  ;  and  to 
this  end,  he  would  begin  at  the  fountain  head,  and  constitute 
one  Universal  Science  as  the  science  of  sciences  and  mother 
of  all  the  rest,  which  was  to  be  as  the  trunk  to  the  branches 
of  the  tree.  This  science  he  called  Philo&ophia  Prima,  or 
indeed  "  Sapience,"  which  had  been  *  anciently  defined  as 
the  knowledge  of  all  things  divine  and  human  " :  — 


380  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

"  What  may  be  sworn  by,  both  divine  and  human, 
Seal  what  I  end* withal."  —  Cor.,  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

He  was  not  a  man  of  physics  merely,  but  understood 
metaphysics  to  be  one  part  even  of  natural  philosophy,  in 
theory  necessarily  preceding  physics,  and  in  time  and  prac- 
tice necessarily  following  on  physics,  the  other  part,  "  as  a 
branch  or  descendant  of  natural  science,"  *  and  as  afford- 
ing the  only  safe  passage  into  that  Summary  or  Higher 
Philosophy,  which  he  recognized  as  reigning  supreme  over 
sciences  as  "  the  parent  or  common  ancestor  to  all  knowl- 
edge." He  divided  all  philosophy  into  three  divisions,  con- 
cerning God,  Nature,  and  Man ;  and  he  said  there  was 
a  "  three-fold  ray  of  things  ;  for  Nature  strikes  the  intellect 
by  a  direct  ray  ;  but  God,  by  a  ray  refracted,  by  reason  of 
the  unequal  medium  (the  creation)  ;  and  Man  as  shown 
and  exhibited  to  himself,  by  a  ray  reflected."  2  He  seemed 
also,  in  accordance  with  the  ideas  and  spirit  of  that  age,  in 
some  measure  to  admit  "  Divinity  or  Inspired  Theology," 
resting  on  Scriptural  authority,  as  a  department  of  inquiry 
distinct  from  philosophy ;  and  he  spoke  of  divinity  as  "  the 
book  of  God's  word,"  and  of  philosophy  as  "  the  book  of 
God's  works."  "  Physique,"  says  he,  "  inquireth  and  hand- 
leth  the  material  and  efficient  causes ;  and  the  other,  which 
is  Metaphysique,  bandleth  the  formal  and  final  causes,  that 
which  supposes  in  nature  a  reason,  understanding,  and 
platform  "  ;  that  is  to  say,  something  like  the  vous  or  intel- 
lect of  Anaxagoras  and  Plato.  And  again  he  says,  "  let  the 
investigation  of  forms,  which  (in  reasoning  at  least  and 
after  their  own  laws)  are  eternal  and  immutable,  constitute 
metaphysics,  and  let  the  investigation  of  the  efficient  cause 
of  matter,  latent  process,  and  latent  conformation  (which 
all  relate  merely  to  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  and  not 
to  the  eternal  and  fundamental  laws)  constitute  physics."  8 

i  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Works  (Mont.),  n.  134. 
2  De  Aug.  Scient.,  L.  III.  c.  1. 
»  Nov.  Org.,  II.  §  9. 


BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER.  381 

He  was  able  to  see  through  physics  into  metaphysics,  and 
he  drew  the  line  between  them  distinctly  enough.  Since 
the  giant  Kant  grappled  with  these  « forms "  or  laws  of 
the  understanding  or  reason,  and  began  to  make  a  clearer 
opening  into  the  true  nature  of  Time  and  Space,  his  students 
and  successors,  more  profoundly  penetrating  the  subject, 
and,  especially,  Cousin,  more  thoroughly  studying  the  critical 
method  of  scientific  thinking  taught  by  Plato,  in  a  masterly 
elimination  of  the  errors  of  Locke  and  Kant,  have  con- 
tributed much  toward  making  Kant's  "  narrow  foot-path " 
to  be  in  truth  "  a  high  road  of  thought " ;  and  since  all 
together  have  still  further  cleared  up  these  "fundamental 
and  eternal  laws  "  of  all  thinking,  divine  or  human,  it  has 
become  easier  for  others  to  grasp  the  profound  conceptions 
of  Bacon,  which,  however  obscurely  expressed,  were  never- 
theless distinctly  defined  in  the  vast  comprehension  of  his 
mighty  intellect.  "  It  is  best,"  he  says,  "  to  consider  matter, 
its  conformation,  and  the  changes  of  that  conformation,  its 
own  action,  and  the  laws  of  this  action  or  motion  ;  for  forms 
are  a  mere  fiction  of  the  human  mind,  unless  you  will  call 
the  laws  of  action  by  that  name."  1  That  he  referred  these 
laws  of  action  to  the  one  thinking  substance  or  essence, 
"  the  Mind  of  Nature,"  and  considered  them  as  eternal  and 
immutable  laws  of  the  Divine  Mind,  thinking  a  universe, 
if  a  little  uncertain  here,  is  made  plain  enough  in  other 
parts  of  his  writings.  He  says  again  :  "  Those  which  refer 
all  things  to  the  glory  of  God  are  as  the  three  acclamations  : 
Sancte  !  Sancte  !  Sancte  !  holy  in  the  description  or  dilata- 
tion of  his  works  ;  holy  in  the  connection  or  concatenation 
of  them  ;  and  holy  in  the  union  of  them  in  a  perpetual  and 
uniform  law.  And  therefore  the  speculation  was  excellent 
in  Parmenides  and  Plato,  although  but  a  speculation  in 
them,  that  all  things  by  scale  did  ascend  to  unity  "  :  in  him- 
self, it  was  an  absolute  belief,  and  in  this  author's  Malcolm 

i  Nov.  Org.,  I.  §  51. 


382  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

declining  to  be  King,  we  may  discover  some  inverse  and 
oblique  appreciation  of  the  same  doctrine  :  — 

"  Nay,  had  I  power,  I  should 
Pour  the  sweet  milk  of  concord  into  Hell, 
Uproar  the  universal  peace,  confound 
All  unity  on  Earth."  —  Macb.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

And  so,  "  in  the  entrance  of  philosophy,"  he  continues, 
"  when  the  second  causes,  which  are  next  unto  the  senses, 
do  offer  themselves  to  the  mind  of  man,  if  it  dwell  and  stay 
there,  it  may  induce  some  oblivion  of  the  highest  cause ; 
but  when  a  man  passeth  on  further,  and  seeth  the  depend- 
ence of  causes,  and  the  works  of  Providence,  then,  accord- 
ing to  the  allegory  of  the  poets,  he  will  easily  believe  that 
the  highest  link  of  nature's  chain  must  needs  be  tied  to  the 
foot  of  Jupiter's  chair."  The  same  doctrine  is  more  dis- 
tinctly expressed  in  his  interpretation  of  the  fable  of  Pan, 
thus :  — 

"  The  Horns  represent  the  world  as  broader  below,  but 
sharp  at  the  vertex.  For  the  whole  of  nature  is  pointed 
like  a  pyramid.  Inasmuch  as  the  individual  things,  in 
which  the  basis  of  nature  is  extended,  are  infinite ;  these 
are  gathered  into  species  which  are  themselves  manifold  ; 
species  again  rise  into  genera,  and  these  also  in  ascending 
are  contracted  more  and  more  into  generals ;  so  that,  at 
length,  nature  appears  to  pass  into  unity  ;  which  is  the 
signification  of  that  pyramidal  figure  of  Pan's  horns.  In- 
deed, it  is  no  wonder  that  the  horns  of  Pan  even  touch 
the  heavens ;  since  the  highest  parts  of  nature,  or  universal 
ideas,  do  in  a  certain  manner  pertain  to  divine  things. 
Therefore,  that  chain  (of  natural  causes),  which  Homer 
sung,  is  said  to  be  fastened  to  the  foot  of  Jupiter's  throne  ; 
and  every  one  (as  it  would  seem),  who  has  withdrawn  his 
mind  for  a  while  from  particulars  and  the  flow  of  things, 
and  treated  of  metaphysic  and  the  eternal  and  immutable 
in  nature,  has  at  once  fallen  into  Natural  Theology  ;  so  near 


BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER.  383 

and  ready  is  the  transition  from  that  top  of  the  pyramid  to 
things  divine." l 

To  his  Summary  Philosophy  he  had  assigned  the  "  prin- 
ciples and  axioms  "  which  were  common  to  the  several  sci- 
ences, and  "  likewise  the  inquiry  touching  the  operation  of 
the  relative  and  adventitious  characters  of  essences,  as  quan- 
tity, similitude,  diversity,  possibility  and  the  rest "  (which, 
he  said,  might  be  called  "  Transcendental  "),  as  being  the 
common  ancestor  to  all  knowledge  ;  but  to  Metaphysic,  the 
inquiry  of  the  formal  and  final  causes,  as  being  the  descend- 
ant of  natural  science  ;  whence  it  would  seem  that  the 
two,  so  far  as  different,  stood,  in  his  scheme,  in  the  relation 
to  one  another  of  the  beginning  to  the  end,  which  was  to  be 
philosophy  itself,  when  the  wheel  should  come  full  circle. 
But  these  matters  were  to  be  "  handled  as  they  have 
efficacy  in  nature,  and  not  logically  " ;  that  is,  as  they  really 
exist  and  operate  in  nature,  and  not  syllogistically  only,  as 
if  a  world  could  be  made  out  of  categories ;  for  it  was  man- 
ifest to  him  "  that  Plato,  as  one  that  had  a  wit  of  elevation 
situate  as  upon  a  cliff,  did  descry,  That  forms  [laws]  were 
the  true  object  of  knowledge,  but  lost  the  real  fruit  of  his  opinion 
by  considering  of  forms  as  absolutely  abstracted  from  matter 
and  not  confined  and  determined  by  matter,  and  so  turning  his 
opinion  upon  theology,  wherewith  all  his  natural  philosophy 
is  infected."  2  Here,  in  respect  of  forms  abstracted  from 
matter,  and  not  determined  by  matter,  there  is  probably 
some  misconception  of  Plato's  doctrine,  though  in  accord- 
ance with  some  received  interpretations  of  his  philosophy  ; 
and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  great  error  of  Kant ;  but 
Bacon  knew  that  "  there  was  no  small  difference  between 
the  idols  of  the  human  mind,  and  the  ideas  of  the  divine 
mind,  that  is  to  say,  between  certain  idle  dogmas  and  the 
real  stamp  and  impression  of  created  objects  as  they  are 
found  in  nature."  8    Plato,  he  said,  "  was  without  doubt  a 

l  De  Aug.  Sclent.,  Lib.  II.  c  13. 
a  Adv.  of  Learn.  8  Nov.  Org.,  II.  §  23. 


384  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

man  of  loftier  genius  "  than  Aristotle,  and  "  aimed  also  at 
the  knowledge  of  forms,  and  used  induction  universally,  not 
for  principles  only,  but  also  for  middle  propositions ;  and 
these  things  were  truly  divine  ;  but  he  grasped  at  abstract 
forms,  drew  his  matter  of  induction  from  common  and 
obvious  things  only,  and,  on  the  whole,  adulterated  nature 
as  much  with  theology  as  Aristotle  with  logic,  and,  to  say 
the  truth,  approached  as  near  to  the  province  of  the  poet 
as  the  other  to  that  of  the  sophist." x  His  opinion  of  Aris- 
totle and  the  Greek  philosophers  generally  was,  on  the 
whole,  "  that  such  systems  and  theories  were  like  the  dif- 
ferent arguments  of  dramatic  pieces,  moulded  into  a  certain 
keeping  with  nature."  But  he  agreed  with  Empedocles 
and  Democritus,  "  who  complain,  the  first  madly  enough, 
but  the  second  soberly,  that  all  things  are  hidden  away 
from  us,  that  we  know  nothing,  that  truth  is  drowned  in 
deep  wells,  and  that  the  true  and  the  false  are  strangely 
joined  and  twisted  together ;  and  therefore,  let  all  men 
know  that  the  preferring  of  complaints  against  nature  and 
the  arts  [i.  e.  making  strict  inquiry  and  examination]  is  a 
thing  well  pleasing  to  the  gods,  and  draws  down  new  alms 
and  bounties  from  the  divine  goodness."  2 

It  was  not  the  dialectic  method  of  Plato  in  itself,  which 
was  nothing  less  than  critical  and  scientific  thinking,  and 
used  induction  universally,  that  is,  as  an  actual  interpreta- 
tion of  nature,  nor  his  metaphysical  theory  of  the  universe, 
that  Bacon  objected  to  in  him,  but  the  too  exclusively 
metaphysical  phase  of  his  philosophy  and  the  theological 
direction  which  it  had  given  to  the  studies  and  contempla- 
tions of  men,  to  the  utter  neglect  of  any  scientific  study  of 
nature.  It  relied  too  much  on  "  discourse  and  doctrine  " : 
Plato,  he  says,  ■  extolleth  too  much  the  understanding  of 
man  in  the  inward  light  thereof." 8     But  besides  this  royal 

i  Int.  of  Nat.,  Works  (Mont),  XV.  26-7. 
2  Prometheus,  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  150. 
8  Filum  Labyrinthi  (Boston),  VI.  427. 


BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER.  385 

metaphysical  road  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and  the  universe, 
which  only  such  men  as  Plato,  if  indeed  they,  could  pursue 
with  safety,  he  saw  that  there  was  another  path,  more  prac- 
ticable and  certain  for  the  minds  of  men  in  general,  more 
abounding  in  practical  fruit,  more  powerful  for  progress,  and 
more  sure  to  furnish  in  good  time  a  solid  foundation  for  the 
higher  metaphysical  philosophy,  and  more  certain  to  lead 
finally  to  the  same  end,  a  true  knowledge  of  the  universe 
and  of  the  order  of  Divine  Providence  in  it.  Plato  had 
'•  subjected  the  world  to  his  contemplations,  and  Aristotle, 
his  contemplations  to  terms,"  and  the  studies  of  men,  verg- 
ing toward  '•  logomachies  and  disputations,"  had  left  "  the 
way  of  the  severer  investigation  of  truth."  Some  of  the 
ancients  had  penetrated  more  deeply  and  acutely  into 
nature  than  Aristotle.  This  was  the  very  thing  to  be  done. 
Democritus,  by  reason  of  his  skill  in  nature,  had  been 
deemed  a  Magician.  His  townsmen,  taking  him  to  be  in- 
sane, sent  for  the  great  physician,  Hippocrates,  who  found 
him  to  be,  after  all,  the  most  sane  man  in  all  Abdera.  Men 
should  return  to  the  other  and  better  path.  He  would  fix 
their  attention  upon  the  atoms  of  Democritus,  "  who  more 
openly  than  any  one  else  asserted  the  eternity  of  matter, 
while  he  denied  the  eternity  of  the  world."  1  In  short,  at 
that  point  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  this  path  had  been 
abandoned.  Democritus  seemed  to  ascribe  to  atoms  "  a 
heterogeneous  motion,"  not  less  than  "  a  heterogeneous 
body  and  power  "  ;  but  in  reality,  he  did  not ;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  distinctly  intimated  that  atoms  "  were  like  nothing 
that  falls  under  the  observation  of  sense,"  and  he  held  them 
"  to  be  of  a  dark  and  secret  nature,"  and  invisible,  needing 
further  investigation.  Democritus  himself  had  got  no  fur- 
ther on,  and  had  terminated  his  inquiries  in  some  vague 
idea  of  necessity.  For  Bacon,  in  this  same  direction  lay 
the  true  line  of  search  for  "  the  last  and  positive  power  and 
law  of  nature,"  and  the  continuity  of  that  chain  of  causes, 

i  Fable  of  Cupid  (Thil.),  I.,  438. 
25 


386  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

which  must  needs  be  tied  to  the  foot  of  Jupiter's  chair.  At 
bottom,  there  is  a  near  resemblance,  an  essential  identity  of 
doctrine,  between  these  invisible  atoms  of  Democritus  and 
Bacon  and  the  monads  or  invisible  points  of  Leibnitz  ;  only 
that  the  conception  is  further  cleared  up  in  Bacon  and 
Leibnitz,  and  the  analysis  attempted  to  be  carried  on  to  the 
end  in  the  last  and  positive  power  and  cause  of  nature  ; 
that  is,  as  they  both  understood,  in  the  thinking  power  of 
God.  Democritus  had  not  been  understood,  and  he  "  had 
been  ridiculed  by  the  vulgar ;  but  neither  the  opposition 
of  Aristotle  (who  was  solicitous  that  posterity  should  not 
doubt  his  dogmas)  could  effect  by  violence,  nor  the  majesty 
of  Plato  effect  by  reverence,  the  demolition  of  this  philos- 
ophy "  ;  but  Genseric,  Attila,  and  the  barbarians  had  been 
the  ruin  of  it. 

It  was  not  so  much  the  philosophy  of  Democritus  as  he 
left  it,  as  his  method,  the  direction  of  his  search,  that  Bacon 
commended.  As  to  the  origin  and  cause  of  nature  itself, 
he  agreed  with  the  ancient  Fable  of  Cupid  rather  than  with 
Democritus.  He  interprets  this  fable  as  an  allegorical 
representation  of  the  first  matter  and  cause  of  all  things. 
Cupid,  that  is,  the  ancient  Cupid  or  Love,  "  the  most  ancient 
of  the  gods,"  born  of  an  egg  over  which  Night  brooded,  and 
coeval  with  Chaos,  was  "  introduced,"  he  says,  "  without  a 
parent,  that  is,  without  a  cause." *  The  fable  relates  to 
"the  cradle  and  infancy  of  nature,  and  pierces  deep." 
"  This  Love  I  understand,"  he  continues,  "  to  be  the  appetite 
or  instinct  of  primal  matter  ;  or  to  speak  more  plainly,  the 
natural  motion  of  the  atom  ;  which  is  indeed  the  original 
and  unique  force  that  constitutes  and  fashions  all  things  out 
of  matter.  Now  this  is  entirely  without  parent ;  that  is, 
without  cause.  For  cause  is  as  it  were  parent  of  effect." 2 
And  the  parent,  first  cause,  and  primal  essence  of  things, 
must  be  a  self-subsistent  person  and  a  finality  as  the  one 

1  Fable  of  Cupid.    De  Aug.  Scient,  L.  III.  c.  4. 

2  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients ;  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  122. 


BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER.  337 

andall  of  being,  God  ;  "for,"  says  he,  "there  cannot  be  in 
nature  (for  we  always  except  God)  any  cause  of  the  first 
matter,  and  of  its  proper  influence  and  action,  for  there  is 
nothing  prior  in  time  to  the  first  matter."  The  first  matter 
is  the  thinking  essence  or  power  of  God,  and,  as  such,  is 
older  than  time  itself.  This  person,  and  first  essence  of  all 
things,  is  represented  in  the  fable  as  born  of  an  egg.  This 
birth  was  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  and  it  had  reference  to 
"  the  proofs,"  the  mode  of  thinking  out  the  fact  of  the 
existence  of  such  person.  The  egg  was  the  whole  problem. 
Night  represented  "  the  negatives  and  exclusions  "  ;  Light, 
"  the  affirmatives  " ;  the  brooding,  "  the  mature  incubation," 
was  the  true  method  and  process  of  philosophical  inquiry  ; 
and  Cupid  was  to  be  at  last  the  hatched  conception  of  the 
all  of  being,  God,  in  the  complete  antithesis  of  light  against 
darkness  ;  affirmation  against  negation  ;  being  against  non- 
entity ;  all  actuality  against  all  possibility ;  that  is  to  say, 
an  essential  living  power  of  the  nature  of  the  power  of 
thought  itself,  a  thinking  essence,  a  thinking  person,  and 
the  All. 

In  Plato,  the  same  conception,  dropping  somewhat  of  the 
poetical  dress  of  the  fable,  stands  forth  in  the  more  naked 
form  of  philosophical  expression.  According  to  him,  the 
Divine  Soul,  the  primal  existence,  comprehending  under 
itself  "  motion  and  standing "  all  in  one,  is  "  that  which 
moves  itself,"  is  "  the  beginning  of  motion,"  is  "  the  oldest 
and  most  divine  of  all  things,"  is  "  nothing  else  but  power  " 
(of  the  nature  of  thinking  power),  and  "  imparts  an  ever- 
flowing  existence,"  in  the  perpetual  work  of  creating  a 
universe.1  "  The  mode  of  this  thing  which  is  uncaused," 
continues  Bacon,  in  the  Fable  of  Cupid,  "  is  likewise  very 
obscure,  which  indeed  the  fable  elegantly  hints  in  Cupid 
being  hatched  beneath  the  brooding  wing  of  Night"  The 
inspired  philosopher  had  felt  the  same  difficulty,  when  he 

i  Phadrus,  Works  of  Plato  (Bohn),  I.  321 ;  Sophist,  lb.  III.  151-6;  Laws, 
lb.  V.  543. 


388  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

said,  "  God  hath  made  all  things  beautiful  in  their  seasons : 
He  hath  also  set  the  world  in  their  heart,  yet  so  that  no 
man  can  find  out  the  work  that  God  worketh  from  the  be- 
ginning unto  the  end.  For  the  great  law  of  essence  and 
nature  cuts  and  runs  through  the  vicissitudes  of  things, 
(which  law  seems  to  be  described  in  the  compass  of  the 
words,  the  toork  tchich  God  wrought  from  the  beginning  even 
to  the  end,)  the  power  lodged  by  God  in  the  primitive  par- 
ticles, from  the  multiplication  of  which,  the  whole  variety 
of  things  might  spring  forth  and  be  composed,  may  indeed 
just  strike,  but  cannot  enter  deeply  the  mind  of  man." 
But  the  philosopher  must  constantly  bear  in  mind  that 
Cupid  is  without  parents,  and  endeavor  to  grasp  the  whole 
fact  as  a  universal  perception  and  conception  and  the  final 
all,  not  permitting  "his  understanding  to  turn  aside  to 
empty  questions,"  and  must  therewith  rest  satisfied  ;  for,  as 
he  says  again,  "  it  would  argue  levity  and  inexperience  in  a 
philosopher  to  require  or  imagine  a  cause  for  the  last  and 
positive  power  and  law  of  nature."  Precisely  herein  lies 
the  difficulty,  that  in  attempting  to  grasp  "  universal  per- 
ceptions of  this  kind,  the  human  mind  becomes  diffusive, 
and  departs  from  the  right  use  of  itself  and  of  its  objects, 
and  whilst  it  tends  toward  things  more  distant,  falls  back 
upon  those  that  are  nearer."  And  when,  through  its  own 
limited  capacity,  "  it  stretches  itself  toward  those  things, 
which,  according  to  experience,  are  for  the  most  part  uni- 
versal, and,  nevertheless,  is  unwilling  to  rest  satisfied,  then, 
as  if  desiring  something  more  within  the  reach  of  its 
knowledge,  it  turns  itself  to  those  things  which  have  most 
affected  or  allured  it,  and  imagines  them  to  be  more  cau- 
sative and  palpable  than  those  universals."  And  in  the 
Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  he  says  again  :  "  Nor  need  we 
wonder  that  Pan's  horns  touch  heaven  ;  since  the  sum- 
mits, or  universal  forms  of  nature,  do  in  a  manner  reach 
up  to  God ;  the  passage  from  metaphysic  to  natural  theol- 
ogy being  ready  and  short "  ;  that  is  to  say,  these  universal 


BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER.  389 

forms,  or  conceptions,  and  laws  of  thought,  must  be  referred 
to  the  Divine  Mind  itself.  Again,  interpreting  this  same 
myth,  he  says,  that  Pan,  as  the  name  itself  imports,  repre- 
sents the  Universe  or  All  of  Things  ;  and  after  giving  the 
threefold  narration  of  the  ancients  concerning  the  creation 
of  Pan,  he  concludes  by  saying,  that  ■  the  story  might  ap- 
pear to  be  true,  if  we  rightly  distinguished  times  and  things ; 
for  this  Pan  (as  we  now  see  and  comprehend  him)  has  his 
origin  from  the  Divine  Word,  through  the  medium  of  con- 
fused Matter,  (which  is  yet  itself  the  work  of  God.)  Sin 
("  Prevaricatio  ")  creeping  in,  and  through  it  Corruption."  1 
So  also  Plato  taught  that  God  created,  first,  the  primary 
forms  of  matter ;  though  it  would  seem  that  Bacon  here 
supposed  that  Plato,  like  Aristotle,  believed  in  a  primal 
matter  "  wholly  waste,  formless,  and  indifferent  to  forms  " 
(a  sort  of  dead  substratum  ?)  on  which  God  worked ;  an 
opinion,  to  which  the  Phaedo  alone  might  seem  to  give  some 
countenance,  if  it  did  not  distinctly  appear  otherwise  in  other 
parts  of  his  writings  ;  and  perhaps  they  all  three  really  con- 
templated this  waste  and  formless  matter,  as  being,  like  the 
Scriptural  matter  that  was  "  without  form  and  void,"  the 
secondary  condition  of  matter  only,  which  was  then  under 
consideration. 

But  returning  to  the  method  of  Democritus,  we  should 
proceed  in  a  rigidly  scientific  manner  by  negatives  and 
exclusions  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  affirmatives  on  the  other, 
until  both  should  be  exhausted,  when  the  all  of  truth  would 
stand  forth  clear  to  the  comprehension  as  bounded  over, 
as  it  were,  against  sheer  blank  nothingness ;  the  whole 
actuality  against  all  possibility.  But  until  Cupid  should  be 
thus  fully  "  sprung  from  Night,"  some  degree  of  ignorance 
must  attend  the  side  of  exclusions,  and  to  us  it  would  con- 
tinue to  be  "  a  kind  of  night "  as  to  what  of  actual  truth 
remained  included  still  under  that  ignorance.  Democritus 
had  remarked  "  that  it  is  requisite  that  the  elements  in  the 
l  De  Aug.  Scient.,  L.  II.  c.  13. 


390  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

work  of  creation  should  put  forth  a  secret  and  dark  nature, 
lest  any  contrarious  and  opposing  principle  should  arise." 
But  when  the  elements  should  be  brought  out  of  ignorance 
into  the  light  of  truth,  that  "  secret  and  dark  nature  "  would 
be  reduced  to  nothing,  would  vanish  and  disappear,  leaving 
only  a  certain  blank  region  of  mere  possibility  beyond  ;  and 
it  would  then  be  seen,  that  no  "  contrarious  and  opposing 
principle  "  actually  existed  other  than  such  blank  possibility. 
Democritus  was  still  struggling  with  the  heterogeneous 
character  of  atoms,  almost  like  another  Dalton,  and  vainly 
endeavoring  to  ascend  to  "  the  primitive  motion  "  and  cause 
of  all  atoms ;  but  he  had  not  attained  to  it,  and  his  philos- 
ophy had  been  overwhelmed  by  the  barbarians.  Bacon 
would  still  pursue  it  with  "  the  parable."  Night  was  not 
to  brood  over  the  egg  forever :  the  inquiry  must  not  stop. 
But,  he  continues,  "  it  is  certainly  proper  to  the  Deity,  that 
in  an  inquiry  into  his  nature  by  means  of  the  senses,  ex- 
clusions should  not  terminate  in  affirmatives "  ;  that  is, 
should  not  stop  short  in  any  incomplete  body  of  affirmations, 
but  "  that  after  due  exclusions  and  negations  something 
should  be  affirmed  and  settled,  and  that  the  egg  should  be 
produced  by  a  seasonable  and  mature  incubation  ;  not  only 
that  the  egg  should  be  brought  forth  by  Night,  but  also 
that  the  person  of  Cupid  should  be  delivered  of  the  egg : 
that  is,  that  not  only  should  an  obscure  notion  upon  this 
subject  be  originated,  but  one  that  is  distinct."  And  he 
adds  :  "  I  think  in  accordance  with  the  parable." 

It  is  clear  enough  that  to  the  mind  of  Bacon  the  Cupid 
of  the  fable  represented  the  First  Cause  and  essence  of  all 
things,  the  one  substance,  neither  an  abstract  matter  nor  a 
dead  substratum,  but  a  living,  thinking  essence  and  power,  a 
personal  God  and  Creator  of  the  Universe,  as  cause  running 
through  the  links  of  Nature's  chain,  as  essence  cutting  and 
running  through  the  vicissitudes  of  things,  in  the  creation 
which  God  works  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  not 
stopping  with  any  six  days'  works  ;  cause  eternally  passing 


BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER.  391 

into  effect  and  subsisting  in  it  as  unity  in  variety  ;  the  one 
and  the  many ;  the  particulars  and  the  whole  ;  being  against 
nonentity ;  actuality  against  possibility  ;  thinking  on  the  one 
hand,  and  forgetting  on  the  other ;  creation  and  destruction  ; 
remembrance  and  oblivion;  for,  as  he  says,  again,  "it  is 
most  evident  that  the  elements  themselves,  and  their  prod- 
ucts, have  a  perpetuity  not  in  individuo,  but  by  supply 
and  succession  of  parts.  For  example,  the  vestal  fire,  that 
was  nourished  by  the  virgins  at  Rome,  was  not  the  same 
fire  still,  but  was  in  perpetual  waste,  and  in  perpetual 
renovation."  *  And  so,  it  would  seem  that  he  had  arrived 
at  that  last  outcome  of  all  philosophy,  ancient  or  modern, 
wherein  it  is  found  that  God  exists  as  a  necessary  fact,  and 
a  truth  which  is  to  be  intellectually  observed  and  seen  by 
all  those  having  eyes  to  see,  resting  for  proof,  not  on  any 
few  petty  Paley-evidences  merely,  but  on  all  evidence  at 
once,  not  as  learning,  but  as  "  sapience,"  and  as  a  power 
of  the  nature  of  the  power  of  thought,  eternally  thinking  a 
universe,  and  being  thus  the  first  cause  of  all  created  things 
and  the  ultimate  fact  of  all  actuality,  bounded  over,  as  it 
were,  against  all  possibility,  — motion  and  standing  in  one  ; 
beyond  which  it  would  be  absurd  to  inquire  for  a  further 
cause,  or  a  more  ultimate  fact :  —  there  being  no  need  of 
another  gun  to  shoot  this  gun. 

In  this  Fable  of  Cupid,  he  speaks  of  three  opinions  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  matter:  first,  that  which  held  an 
original  chaos  of  unformed  matter,  "  stripped  and  passive," 
but  subsisting  of  itself  from  the  beginning.  This  kind  of 
matter  he  considered  as  "  altogether  an  invention  of  the 
human  mind " :  and  next,  a  second,  that  "  forms  existed 
more  than  matter  or  action,"  so  that  the  primitive  and  com- 
mon matter  seemed  as  it  were  an  accessary,  and  to  be  in 
the  place  of  a  support  to  them  ;  but  every  sort  of  action 
only  an  emanation  from  the  form,  —  thus  wholly  separating 
action  or  power  from  matter  as  something  distinct  from  it ; 
i  Works  (Boston),  XV.  39. 


392  BACON  A  PHILOSOPHER. 

and  hence,  also,  a  third,  which  "  derived  the  kingdom  of 
forms  and  ideas  in  essences  by  the  addition  of  a  kind  of 
fantastic  matter,"  —  an  "  abstract  matter,"  together  with 
"  abstract  ideas  and  their  powers."  This  last  was  a  mere 
"  superstition,"  and  this  "  troop  of  dreamers  had  nearly 
overpowered  the  more  sober  class  of  thinkers."  But  in  his 
view,  "  these  assertions  respecting  abstract  matter  were  as 
absurd  as  it  would  be  to  say  the  universe  and  nature  were 
made  out  of  categories  and  such  dialectic  notions."  He 
agreed  with  the  more  ancient  philosophy,  that  "  the  prim- 
itive matter  (such  as  can  be  the  origin  of  things  "),  the  first 
entity,  "  ought  no  less  to  possess  a  real  existence  than  those 
which  flow  from  it ;  rather  more.  For  it  has  its  own 
peculiar  essence,  and  from  it  come  all  the  rest."  In  a  word, 
there  was  no  matter  distinct  from  the  causative  thinking 
essence  itself;  and  this  only  had  a  real  existence.  ■  Almost 
all  the  ancients,"  says  he,  "  Empedocles,  Anaxagoras,  Anax- 
imines,  Heraclitus,  Democritus,  though  disagreeing  in  other 
respects  upon  the  prime  matter,  joined  in  this,  that  they 
held  an  active  matter  with  a  form,  both  arranging  its  own 
form,  and  having  within  itself  the  principle  of  motion." 
Thus  it  clearly  appears,  that  matter  was  to  be  considered 
as  power  of  the  nature  of  the  power  of  thought  in  perpetual 
activity,  producing  motion,  moving  itself,  giving  form,  and 
being  the  only  real  substance,  —  a  thinking  essence ;  —  all 
matter  else  being  a  mere  figment  of  the  brain. 

But  cloudy  logomachies  and  visionary  mystifications  were 
to  cease.  Empty  categories  and  syllogistic  sophistries  were 
to  be  swept  away.  Theological  haze  was  to  be  cleared  up. 
As  touching  Aristotle  and  the  Church,  the  question  between 
him  and  the  ancient  was  not  of  "  the  virtue  of  the  race,  but 
of  the  Tightness  of  the  way " :  it  was  only  "  part  of  the 
same  thing  more  large."  He  would  have  men  return  to 
the  study  of  nature  in  a  scientific  manner,  well  knowing, 
doubtless,  whither  that  course  would  lead  them  in  the  end. 
Physics  and  metaphysics  were  to  go  hand  in  hand  together 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  A  POET.  393 

as  inseparable  parts  of  natural  philosophy.  And  when,  in 
the  course  of  time,  a  sufficiently  ample  foundation  should 
he  laid  in  a  thorough  knowledge  of  nature,  the  loftier  super- 
structure of  the  Philosophia  Prima,  the  Science  of  Sciences, 
Philosophy  itself,  might  be  raised  and  completed.  He 
seems  to  have  contemplated  some  statement  of  the  final 
result  in  the  Sixth  Part  of  the  Great  Installation  ;  but  he 
tells  us  that  it  was  "  both  beyond  his  power  and  expectation 
to  perfect  and  conclude  it."  He  might  make  "  no  con- 
temptible beginning "  ;  and  "  men's  good  fortune  would 
furnish  the  result ;  such  as  men  could  not  easily  compre- 
hend, or  define,  in  the  present  state  of  things  and  the  mind." 
Nor  was  it  to  treat  "  only  of  contemplative  enjoyment,  but 
of  the  common  affairs  and  fortune  of  mankind,  and  of  a 
complete  power  of  action."  This  part  was  not  written, 
but  enough  appears  in  his  writings  to  show,  that  it  would 
have  been  no  materialistic  science  of  dead  substratum,  no 
economic  science  of  practical  fruit  merely,  nor  any  sort  of 
machine  philosophy. 

§    2.    THE    PHILOSOPHER   A    POET. 

In  the  midst  of  these  abstruse  considerations  of  the 
nature  of  cause  and  form,  we  fall  upon  this  passage  in  his 
discussion  of  the  opinion  of  Parmenides,  in  this  same  Fable 
of  Cupid,  "  That  the  first  forms  and  first  entities  are  active, 
and  that  so  the  first  substances  also,  cold  and  heat ;  that 
these,  nevertheless,  exist  incorporeally,  but  that  there  is 
subjoined  to  them  a  passive  and  potential  matter,  which 
has  a  corporeal  magnitude,"  and  that  "  there  are  four  co- 
essential  natures,  and  conjoined,  .  .  .  light  heat,  rarity,  and 
motion  ;  ...  for  a  true  philosopher  will  dissect,  not  sever 
nature  (for  they,  who  will  not  dissect,  must  pull  her  asunder), 
and  the  prime  matter  is  to  be  laid  down  joined  with  the 
primitive  form,  as  also  with  the  first  principle  of  motion,  as 
it  is  found."  And  so,  in  the  play,  Hamlet  is  made  to  say 
of  the  ghost :  — 


394  THE  PHILOSOPHER  A  POET. 

"  His  form  and  cause  conjoined,  preaching  to  stones, 
Would  make  them  capable."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

A  commixture  of  studies  as  of  law,  nature,  poetry,  phi- 
losophy, may  sometimes  very  curiously  introduce  similar 
ideas,  illustrations,  and  language  into  very  different  writings 
of  the  same  author,  and  that,  too,  perhaps  all  unconsciously 
to  himself.  In  his  dedication  of  his  "  Arguments  of  Law  " 
to  the  Society  of  Gray's  Inn,  this  idea  of  severing  nature  is 
introduced  thus  :  "  Nevertheless,  thus  much  I  may  say  with 
modesty,  that  these  arguments  which  I  have  set  forth 
(most  of  them)  are  upon  subjects  not  vulgar,  and  there- 
withal, in  regard  of  the  commixture  that  the  course  of  my 
life  hath  made  of  law  with  other  studies,  they  may  have 
the  more  variety  and  perhaps  the  more  depth  of  reason  : 
for  the  reasons  of  municipal  laws  severed  from  the  grounds 
of  nature,  manners,  and  policy,  are  like  wall-flowers,  which, 
though  they  grow  high  upon  the  crests  of  states,  yet  they 
have  no  deep  roots."  Again,  he  lays  it  down  as  a  rule  in 
physics,  "  that  the  connexion  of  things  should  not  be  sev- 
ered," as  it  "  tends  to  preserve  the  fabric  of  the  universe." 
And  so  Albany  is  made  to  say  of  the  unnatural  daughters 
of  Lear :  — 

"  That  nature  which  contemns  its  origin 
Cannot  be  border' d  certain  in  itself; 
She  that  herself  will  sliver  and  disbranch 
From  her  material  sap,  perforce  must  wither, 
And  come  to  deadly  use."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

And  the  same  idea  underlies  these  beautiful  lines  of  the 
"  Othello  "  :  — 

"  but  once  put  out  thy  light, 
Thou  cunning' st  pattern  of  excelling  nature, 
I  know  not  where  is  that  Promethean  heat, 
That  can  thy  light  relume.    When  I  have  pluck'd  thy  rose, 
I  cannot  give  it  vital  growth  again ; 
It  needs  must  wither."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

And  Lear  himself  may  very  well  be  supposed  to  hold  this 
colloquy  with  the  designing  Gloster  and  the  good  Edgar, 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  A  POET.  395 

without  being  considered  positively  mad,  only  mad  in  craft, 
thus : — 

"  Lear.    First,  let  me  talk  with  this  philosopher.  — 
What  is  the  cause  of  thunder  ? 

Kent.     Good  ray  lord,  take  his  offer:  go  into  th'  house. 

Lear.    I  '11  talk  a  word  with  this  same  learned  Theban.  — 
What  is  your  study  ? 

Edg.    How  to  prevent  the  fiend,  and  to  kill  vermin.  .  .  . 

Glos.    I  do  beseech  your  grace,  — 

Lear.  0,  cry  you  mercy,  sir !  — 

Noble  philosopher,  your  company. 

Edg.    Tom  's  a-cold.  .  .  . 

Kent  This  way,  my  lord. 

Lear.  With  him : 

I  will  keep  still  with  my  philosopher."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

The  philosopher,  in  the  age  of  Shakespeare,  had  to  sail 
sometimes  under  a  cloud  as  dark  as  the  disguise  of  Edgar, 
or  the  madness  of  Lear,  or  the  world  might  be  as  dangerous 
to  him  as  was  that  awful  night  of  cataracts  and  hurricanoes, 

"  Sulphurous  and  thought-executing  fires, 
Vaunt-couriers  to  oak-cleaving  thunderbolts," 

to  the  singed  white  head  of  Lear.  Nevertheless,  would 
Francis  Bacon,  in  his  more  private  and  secret  studies,  still 
keep  company  with  his  first  and  last  love,  the  Noble  Phil- 
osopher. And  he  says,  in  the  Essay  on  Goodness  and 
Goodness  of  Nature,  "  This  of  all  virtues  and  dignities  of 
the  mind  is  the  greatest ;  being  the  character  of  the  Deity : 
and  without  it  man  is  a  busy,  mischievous,  wretched  thing ; 
no  better  than  a  kind  of  vermin."  And  surely  this  must 
have  been  the  same  philosopher  that  founded  the  College 
of  Universal  Science,  or  Solomon's  House,  the  very  end  of 
which  was  "  the  knowledge  of  Causes  "  ;  which  question  of 
the  cause  appears  frequently  in  the  plays,  as  again  thus :  — 

"  Lear.  Then  let  them  anatomize  Regan,  see  what  breeds  about  her 
heart.  Is  there  any  cause  in  nature,  that  makes  these  hard  hearts?"  — 
Act  III.  Sc.  6. 

Bacon  had  studied  the  works  of  Plato,  which,  as  they  had 
never  been  translated  into  English,  must  have  been  for  the 


396  THE  PHILOSOPHER  A  POET. 

most  part  a  sealed  book  to  William  Shakespeare.  There 
are  distinct  traces  of  this  study,  in  both  the  writings  of 
Bacon  and  the  plays,  not  merely  in  the  idea  and  doctrine, 
but  sometimes  even  in  the  expression.  Plato  relates  a 
story  of  a  learned  philosopher  of  the  ancient  Thebes,  who 
was  consulted  for  his  wisdom  by  the  king  of  Egypt ;  and  in 
the  Phaedo  of  Plato,  the  learned  Simmias  is  addressed  in 
the  dialogue  as  u  my  Theban  friend."  It  is,  of  course,  not 
at  all  certain,  but  very  easy  to  believe,  that  the  writer  of 
the  play  had  this  story  in  mind,  when  he  put  these  words 
into  the  mouth  of  Lear  :  — 

"  I  '11  talk  a  word  with  this  same  learned  Theban." 

For  another  instance,  take  this  from  Bacon :  "  Plato 
casteth  his  burden  and  saith,  That  he  will  revere  him  as 
a  God,  that  can  truly  divide  and  define :  which  cannot  be 
but  by  true  forms  and  differences,  wherein  I  join  hands 
with  him,  confessing  as  much,  as  yet  assuming  to  myself 
little." 1     And  thus  it  stands  in  the  "  Hamlet  "  :  — 

"  Osr.  Sir,  here  is  newly  come  to  court,  Laertes;  believe  me,  an  absolute 
gentleman,  full  of  most  excellent  differences,  of  very  soft  society,  and  great 
showing 

Ham.  Sir,  his  definement  suffers  no  perdition  in  you;  though,  I  know, 
to  divide  him  inventorially,  would  dizzy  the  arithmetic  of  memory."  —  Act 
V.  Sc.  2. 

And  again  says  Bacon,  in  the  same  work  :  — 

"  But  I  found  myself  constructed  more  for  the  contemplations  of  truth 
than  for  aught  else,  as  having  a  mind  sufficiently  mobile  for  recognizing 
(what  is  most  of  all)  the  similitude  of  things,  and  sufficiently  fixed  and  in- 
tent for  observing  the  subtleties  of  differences,  and  possessing  love  of  inves- 
tigation, patience  in  doubting,  pleasure  in  meditating,  delay  in  asserting, 
facility  in  returning  to  wisdom,  and  neither  affecting  novelty,  nor  admiring 
antiquity,  and  hating  all  imposture." 

Plato  alludes  to  the  "  weaving  a  kind  of  Penelope's  web 
the  reverse  way  " ;  Bacon,  several  times,  uses  the  same 
simile  of  "  Penelope's  web  doing  and  undoing  "  ;  and  in 
the  second  part  of  the  "  Henry  VI."  there  is  an  allusion  to 

l  Int.  of  Nat.,  Works  (Phil.),  I.  90. 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  A  POET.  397 

this  same  untwining  of  "  Parca's  fatal  web."  Toss  is  a 
favorite  word  with  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  and  it  is  used 
by  Plato  in  the  same  way.  "  And  I  often  tossed  myself 
upwards  and  downwards,"  says  Plato ;  "  the  word,  the 
bread  of  life,  they  toss  up  and  down,"  says  Bacon.  Plato's 
"  prop  of  a  state,"  appears  oftentimes  in  Bacon,  and  fre- 
quently again  in  the  plays.  Top,  as  "  tops  of  judgment," 
u  tops  of  mountains,"  is  a  favorite  metaphor  in  both  writ- 
ings ;  and  Bacon  quotes  Pindar's  "  tops  of  all  virtues." 
The  simile  of  the  mirror  or  glass,  several  times  occurring 
in  Plato,  is  a  favorite  one  with  Bacon,  and  it  is  often  re- 
peated in  the  plays.  Plato  speaks  of  "  seeing  nothing  with 
the  mind's  eye  " ;  Bacon,  of  "  fixing  the  mind's  eye  stead- 
ily " ;  and  Hamlet  answers :  "  In  my  mind's  eye,  Horatio." 
In  Plato's  B  Laws,"  we  find  this  expression,  "  while  beget- 
ting and  rearing  children,  and  handing  in  succession  from 
some  to  others  life,  like  a  torch,  and  ever  paying,  accord- 
ing to  law,  worship  to  the  gods  " ;  to  which  Bacon  probably 
alludes,  when  he  calls  his  method  of  delivery  to  posterity 
"  the  Handing  on  of  the  Lamp."  So,  in  the  "  Measure  for 
Measure,"  it  is  said  :  — 

"  Heaven  doth  with  us,  as  we  with  torches  do, 
Not  light  them  for  ourselves." 

In  the  "  Cratylus "  of  Plato,  there  is  an  allusion  to  the 
-3£sopo-Socratic  fable  of  the  ass  in  the  lion's  skin,  thus :  — 
"  But,  however,  since  I  have  put  on  the  lion's  skin,  I  must 
not  act  the  coward  " ;  and  the  same  reappears  in  the  "  King 
John,"  thus :  — 

"  Const.    Thou  wear  a  lion's  hide !  doff  it  for  shame, 
And  hang  a  calf-skin  on  those  recreant  limbs." 

In  the  "  Banquet "  of  Plato,  we  have  this  passage :  — 
"  Thus,  Phacdrus,  Love  appears  to  me  to  be,  in  the  first 
place,  himself  the  most  beautiful  and  the  best,  in  the  next, 
to  be  the  cause  of  such  like  beautiful  things  in  other  be- 
ings " ;  Bacon  says  of  the  tuning  of  instruments,  that  it  is 


398  UXIVERSALS. 

not  pleasant  to  hear,  "  but  yet  is  a  cause  why  the  music  is 
sweeter  afterwards";  and  so,  Falstaff:  "I  am  not  only 
witty  in  myself,  but  a  cause  that  wit  is  in  other  men." 

Not  much  can  be  safely  founded  on  resemblances  of  this 
kind,  standing  alone  ;  but  even  straws  may  show  which 
way  the  wind  blows  ;  and  when  these  authors  are  read  to- 
gether and  compared,  in  respect  of  their  whole  thought 
and  manner,  remembering  that  Bacon  derived  not  a  little 
of  his  deeper  philosophy  from  the  study  of  Plato,  even 
these  and  the  like  similitudes  may  be  admitted  to  have 
some  significance.  But  he  was  himself  one  of  those  im- 
perial thinkers  that  recognize  no  master  but  one  ;  for  he 
was  accustomed,  not  merely  "  now  and  then  to  draw  a 
bucket  of  water  "  out  of  "  a  deep  well,"  as  some  others  had 
done,  but  habitually  to  visit  "  the  spring-head  thereof." 

§  3.    UNIVERSALS. 

There  are  many  passages  in  the  writings  of  Bacon,  which 
indicate  that  his  opinion  was,  that  the  primal  cause  or 
essence  itself  gives  the  form  of  things ;  and  this  can 
scarcely  be  conceived  otherwise  than  as  the  essential 
power  of  thought,  in  creation,  giving  both  the  substance 
and  the  form  to  particular  things,  the  active  power  being 
the  only  substance  or  matter,  and  being  of  itself  by  its  own 
nature  self-acting  and  self-directing  cause  :  wherefore  it 
had  been  laid  down,  that  the  first  essence,  or  Cupid,  was 
without  parents.  He  then  proceeds  to  the  discussion  of 
the  "  mode  of  this  thing  which  is  uncaused  " ;  for,  as  he 
says  in  the  Advancement,  "  one  must  seek  the  dignity  of 
knowledge  in  the  archetype,  or  first  platform,  which  is  in 
the  attributes  and  acts  of  God,  as  far  as  they  are  revealed 

to  man,  and  may  be  observed  with  sobriety, not 

by  the  name  of  learning,  but  by  that  of  wisdom  or  sapi- 
ence,   for  in  God  all  knowledge  is  original."     Lear, 

in  his  madness,  supposed  his  philosopher,  Edgar,  to  pos- 
sess something  of  this  sapience  :  — 


UNIVERSALE  399 

"  Lear.  I  will  arraign  them  straight. 

Come,  sit  thou  here,  most  learned  justicer;  —        [To  Edgar. 
Thou  sapient  sir,  sit  here."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  6. 

It  was  likewise  very  obscure.  Not  so  much  with  any 
idea  of  making  the  matter  more  clear,  as  for  the  better 
understanding,  if  possible,  of  the  general  scope  and  result 
to  which  his  views  and  doctrines  tended,  let  us  suppose  him 
to  have  expounded,  in  more  modern  phrase  and  in  some- 
what fuller  outline,  the  following 

APHORISMS    OF    UNIVERSALS. 

1.  God  is  to  be  conceived  as  an  eternally  continuing 
Power  of  Thought,  and,  as  such,  the  only  essence,  sub- 
stance, or  matter,  the  last  power  and  cause  of  all  Nature, 
a  Divine  Artist-Mind,  eternally  thinking,  that  is,  creating, 
a  Universe  ;  being,  in  fact,  no  other  than  "  the  order, 
operation,  and  Mind  of  Nature." 1 

2.  The  existence  of  such  Power  of  Thought,  in  an 
eternal  state  of  living  activity,  as  self-acting  and  self-direct- 
ing cause,  is  an  ultimate  and  final  fact,  beyond  which,  to 
inquire  after,  or  to  attempt  to  imagine,  a  further  cause,  or  a 
more  ultimate  fact,  would  be  contradictory  to  the  laws  of 
all  thinking,  and  to  the  fact  itself,  which  stands  forth  self- 
evident  to  the  mental  vision,  whenever  it  is  looked  for, 
comprehended,  and  seen,  by  the  true  Interpreter  of  Na- 
ture having  eyes  to  see  ;  and  therefore,  any  attempt  at  such 
further  inquiry  would  be  in  itself  absurd,  as  it  would  be 
an  inquiry  after  a  non-existent  fact,  and  an  inconceivable 
thing.2 

3.  The  Infinity  of  God  consists  in  the  exhaustless  pos- 
sibility of  his  continuous  existence  as  such  Power  of 
Thought 

4.  The  Eternity  of  God  consists  in  his  ever-continuous 
activity  as  such  existent  Power  of  Thought,  in  thinking,  — 
conceiving,  remembering,  and  forgetting  (voluntarily  ceas- 

l  Nov.  Org.,  Inirod.  *  Nov.  Org.  I.  §  48. 


400  UNIVERSALS. 

ing  to  remember)  ;  that  is,  in  creating,  upholding,  and  de- 
stroying, and  continuing  to  uphold  and  create,  a  universe 
in  Time  and  Space. 

5.  His  Omnipotence  consists  in  the  unlimited  possibility 
of  his  own  continuous  existence  as  a  Power  of  Thought  in 
such  continuous  activity,  and  not  in  any  power  to  transcend, 
or  contradict,  the  nature  of  his  own  being  as  such  existent 
actuality,  or  the  necessary  laws  of  all  thought,  under  which 
alone  existence  and  thinking,  that  is  God  and  creation,  are 
at  all  possible ;  nor  in  his  limited  power,  in  accordance 
with  the  nature  of  his  being  and  under  the  necessary  laws 
of  thought,  so  to  create,  uphold,  and  destroy,  and  continue 
to  uphold  and  create,  a  universe  in  Time  and  Space. 

6.  His  Omniscience  consists  in  his  knowing  his  own  ex- 
istence, nature,  power,  necessary  laws,  and  possibilities,  — 
his  self-consciousness,  and  the  whole  present  state  of  his 
thought,  existing  in  that  consciousness  as  the  present  ex- 
istent universe  in  Time  and  Space. 

7.  With  God,  to  think  and  know  is  to  create ;  and  his 
thought  is  reality ;  and  therefore,  any  foreknowlege  of 
what  is  yet  unthought  and  uncreated,  or  any  foreordained 
plan  of  the  creation,  beyond  this  extent  of  his  omniscience, 
is  an  inconceivable  thing,  an  impossibility,  and  an  absurdity. 

8.  The  Providential  order  and  plan  in  the  creation,  so 
far  as  it  has  existed,  now  exists,  or  ever  may  exist,  or  can 
be  conceived  to  exist,  consists,  and  must  consist,  in  the 
existence,  nature,  power,  laws,  and  possibilities  of  God,  to- 
gether with  the  actual  order  and  plan  of  the  present  exist- 
ent created  universe  in  time  and  space,  so  far  only ;  and 
hence  the  only  possible  foreground  for  us  of  what  the  cer- 
tain, the  possible,  and  the  probable  continuation  thereof 
will  be,  in  any  future  or  other  Time  and  Space. 

9.  What  the  plan  will  actually  be,  in  the  future  conti- 
nuity of  time,  in  respect  of  the  particular  details  and  total 
order  thereof,  is  impossible  to  be  foreknown,  or  to  be  con- 
ceived by  man  to  be  foreknown,  to  God  himself;  for,  with 


UNIVERSALS.  401 

him,  to  conceive  and  know  it,  would  be,  to  bring  it  into 
present  actual  existence  as  a  part  of  the  existent  universe 
of  fact  and  reality. 

10.  The  Freedom  of  God  consists  in  the  dependence  of 
the  existent  created  and  remembered  universe,  and  of  any 
future  universe,  for  what  it  shall  be,  in  time  and  space,  in 
the  particular  details  and  total  plan  thereof,  upon  his  Free 
"Will,  which  is  Liberty. 

11.  "With  God,  in  the  continuity  of  his  thought,  is  the 
continuity  of  Time  and  Space,  that  is  of  ideas  ;  and  as  the 
whole  present  state  of  his  thought  is,  in  each  successive 
instant,  present  to  his  consciousness,  being  held,  and,  as  it 
were,  carried  forward  in  his  remembrance  so  far  as  it  is 
remembered,  and  so  sustained  in  the  continuity  of  time : 
therefore,  with  him,  it  is  an  everlasting  Now  and  Here, 
bounded  only  by  the  eternal  possibilities  of  his  thinking 
existence  ;  that  is,  of  creating,  remembering,  and  forgetting 
(ceasing  to  remember). 

12.  The  Perfection  of  God  consists  in  his  absolute 
wisdom,  justice,  goodness,  and  love,  and  in  the  beauty  of 
his  nature  and  being,  as  such  existent  Power  of  Thought, 
and  not  in  any  perfection  of  the  created  universe  merely, 
wherein  there  can  be  no  more  perfection,  goodness,  and 
beauty  possible  in  the  particulars  than  as  much  as  may  con- 
sist with  the  total  order  and  plan  of  the  whole  given  crea- 
tion, as  a  universe  of  variety  in  unity ;  nor  more  in  the 
total  plan  thereof  than  what  may  possibly  consist  with  the 
existence,  nature,  power,  laws,  and  possibilities  of  God 
himself. 

13.  The  Immortality  of  any  finite  soul,  or  the  endless 
continuity  of  its  existence  in  future  time  and  space  (for  in 
time  and  space  only  can  a  created  soul  possibly  exist),  is  a 
possibility,  and  a  probability,  only,  depending  for  the  fact, 
like  the  rest  of  any  future  universe,  on  the  divine  nature 
and  free-will  in  the  future  order  of  his  providence. 

14.  Therefore,  the  Immortality  of  any  given  soul  can 

26 


402  UNIVERSALS. 

neither  be  foreknown  to  God,  nor  revealed  to  man,  nor  in 
any  manner  predicated  for  certain  fact. 

15.  Oblivion  (or  Nonentity)  is  the  possibility  of  God's 
forgetting  (ceasing  to  remember),  that  is,  destroying  and 
annihilating  the  created  forms  and  substances  of  particular 
things  as  such  by  change  of  his  thought  in  the  same  time 
and  the  same  space,  —  totally  withdrawing  the  power  of 
his  thought  from  that  thing  ;  —  the  reality  of  oblivion  as 
such  possibility  being  necessarily  subsumed  and  included 
in  the  existent  fact  of  a  First  Cause  of  the  nature  of  a 
Power  of  Thought  in  action,  thinking  a  universe ;  and  not 
in  any  possibility  of  forgetting,  totally  annihilating,  the  cre- 
ation and  himself;  which  would  be  an  inconceivable  thing, 
an  impossibility,  and  an  absurdity. 

16.  The  Infinity  of  Substance  as  the  activity  of  such 
Power  of  Thought  consists  in  the  endless  possibility  of 
finite  forms  of  substance,  that  is  the  possibility  of  the 
power  of  thought  being  exerted  in  special  particular  ways 
under  the  limitations  of  Time  and  Space,  which  are  in 
themselves  merely  necessary  laws  of  all  thought,  divine  or 
human,  giving  form  ;  and  thence  the  particular  substances 
of  all  created  things  and  their  forms,  and  the  modes  of 
power,  and  motion,  absolute  or  relative,  which  is  produced 
by  the  power  of  thought  in  active  movement,  —  the  possi- 
bility of  difference  in  totality. 

17.  That  Will  Absolute  consists  in  the  possibility  of  the 
Divine  Existence  in  fact  as  such  self-moving  Power  of 
Thought  and  self-directing  cause,  or  Soul,  measuring  the 
total  fact,  the  total  amount  of  power,  which,  as  such,  is  not 
absolutely  free,  but  a  fixed  fact  and  a  necessity :  unlimited 
freedom  for  such  Power  of  Thought  could  take  place  only 
at  the  exact  point  of  total  rest,  wherein  would  be  utter 
extinction  and  annihilation  of  all  existence  ;  which  is  im- 
possible, a  contradiction,  and  an  inconceivable  absurdity. 

18.  Free- Will,  or  Liberty,  when  distinguished  from  self- 
moving  power,  is  only  one  of  the  possibilities  of  thought, 


UNIVERSALS.  403 

and  consists  in  the  limited  possibility  of  the  total  amount 
of  power  being  exerted  under  all  the  necessary  laws  or 
principles  of  thought  in  co-action  with  one  another,  in 
special  ways  and  particular  directions  (in  Time  and  Space) ; 
that  is,  the  possibility  of  self-moving  Power,  or  Soul,  giving 
law  and  limitation  to  itself  in  the  process  of  creation  of 
conceptions  or  things,  and  in  the  determination  of  acts, 
in  thinking  and  doing ;  wherein  is  the  possibility  of  Time, 
Space,  and  Position,  or  times,  spaces,  and  places,  giving  the 
forms  and  places  of  conceptions  or  things,  or  of  acts  and 
doings,  in  all  creation  or  thinking,  —  the  possibility  of 
duality,  plurality,  multiplicity,  diversity,  change,  and  differ- 
ence ;  opposition,  co-ordination,  and  involution  of  particu- 
lars, —  ideas,  conceptions,  things,  or  acts  ;  that  is,  of  the 
involution,  as  it  were,  of  the  Divine  Soul  upon  itself  in 
thinking ;  giving  thus  a  progressive  and  flowing  universe 
of  variety  and  change  in  the  unity  of  totality. 

19.  Eternity  consists  merely  in  the  possibility  of  time, 
or  times  in  succession. 

20.  Immensity  consists  merely  in  the  possibility  of  space, 
or  spaces  in  succession. 

21.  Infinity,  in  reference  to  Time,  Space,  and  Place, 
consists  merely  in  the  possibility  of  time,  space,  and  posi- 
tion, or  times,  spaces,  and  places. 

22.  Time,  Space,  and  Position  are  in  themselves  merely 
necessary  principles  or  laws  of  all  possible  thinking,  giving 
the  forms  of  ideas,  conceptions,  things,  or  acts,  and  their 
place  and  the  correlation  of  places. 

23.  Place,  position,  or  mathematical  point  expresses  the 
exact  point  of  beginning  of  creation  of  an  idea,  conception, 
thing,  or  act,  where  the  finite  begins  to  be  bounded  out  of 
the  infinite,  into  time,  space,  and  position  ;  these  three  laws 
of  thought  giving  thus  the  form  and  the  place  of  the  idea 
or  thing  or  act. 

24.  Personality  is  constituted  in  the  totality  of  the  think- 
ing subject :  neither  Time,  Space,  nor  Position  can  be  at 


404  UNIVERSALS. 

all  predicated  of  the  absolute  thinking  subject,  or  Divine 
Soul,  otherwise  than  as  such  laws  of  thought,  but  only  of 
the  finite  thinking  person,  among  other  created  things, 
whether  as  an  individual,  physical  object,  or  as  a  metaphys- 
ical subject. 

25.  The  Continuity  of  Time,  for  us,  consists  in  the  per- 
manence and  persistence  of  created  things,  which  may  be 
eternal,  or  have  an  end,  at  the  will  of  the  Creator ;  or 
rather,  in  the  continuity  of  the  work  of  creation  in  the 
Divine  Mind. 

26.  Mobility  consists  in  the  possibility  of  change  of  direc- 
tion of  the  power  of  thought  in  thinking,  that  is,  of  move- 
ment in  creating  and  forgetting,  and  in  changing  the  order 
of  relation  of  ideas  or  things  to  one  another. 

27.  Motion  consists  in  a  change  in  fact  of  the  power  of 
thought,  producing  change  of  form,  or  change  of  relative 
place,  or  relative  mode  of  power,  that  is,  change  of  the 
power  of  thought  exerted  in  time  and  space,  whether  imme- 
diately, or  through  mediate  instrumentation ;  continuous 
change,  if  in  successive  times  and  through  successive  spaces ; 
sudden,  if  in  one  time,  producing  change  of  space  ;  instan- 
taneous and  total,  if  in  the  same  time  and  the  same  space, 
as  in  oblivion  or  annihilation  by  forgetting,  passing  from 
activity  to  rest  in  that  particular  thing  ;  as  also  in  total  new 
creation,  passing  from  rest  into  activity  in  that  particular 
thing;  and  partial  and  progressive  in  continuous  change 
of  relative  place  and  mode,  in  the  gradual  and  continu- 
ous change  of  old  idea  into  new  ;  and  at  the  precise  point 
where  the  annihilation  of  the  forgotten  old  conception,  or 
creation,  begins  and  ends,  in  the  old  time  and  space,  there 
begins  also  necessarily  at  the  same  point  and  in  the  same 
instant  of  time,  and  continues,  the  creation  of  the  new  con- 
ception, or  the  new  creation,  in  the  new  time  and  space  ; 
and  so  on,  through  the  successive  instants  of  change  in  the 
perpetual  flow  of  creation. 

28.  Speed  measures  the  amount  of  change  of  the  power 


UNIVERSALS.  405 

of  thought,  giving  the  extent  of  change  of  form,  or  of  rel- 
ative place,  or  mode,  in  a  given  time,  in  the  work  of 
change  in  the  creation  of  new  or  in  the  destruction  of  the 
old  forms,  or  order  of  things. 

29.  Equilibrium  measures  that  degree  of  exertion  of  the 
power  of  thought  in  the  same  space  and  in  one  time,  or 
through  a  continuous  series  of  times  in  the  same  space  or 
series  of  spaces,  which  is  necessary  in  order  to  keep  the 
thought  continuously  in  one  and  the  same  state  for  any 
given  length  of  time,  in  respect  of  the  whole,  or  any  part 
of  it ;  and  this  is  Remembrance,  wherein  is  the  stability  of 
the  universe  so  far  as  it  is  stable,  and  its  permanence  in  so 
far  as  it  is  permanent :  and  equilibrium  takes  place  at  the 
exact  point  of  median  stationary  balance  between  movement 
and  rest,  between  creating  and  forgetting  ;  and  hence  that 
law  of  gravitation  of  all  bodies  toward  each  other  with  a 
degree  of  force  directly  proportional  to  the  mass,  and  in- 
versely proportional  to  the  square  of  the  distance,  whereby 
in  conjunction  with  a  projectile  impulse  giving  orbits  of 
revolution,  the  heavenly  bodies  are  held  in  their  places  and 
orbits  in  more  or  less  permanent  universal  stability,  in  the 
perpetual  flow  of  the  Providential  order. 

30.  Absolute  or  Total  Rest  would  take  place  only  at  the 
exact  point  wherein  the  activity  of  the  divine  thought 
should  wholly  cease,  ending  in  a  flat  contradiction  to  the 
necessary  and  self-evident  fact  of  an  existent  Power  of 
Thought  eternally  in  action  without  rest :  any  such  supposi- 
tion would  be  an  inconceivable  thing,  an  impossibility,  and 
an  absurdity. 

31.  Necessity  consists  in  the  fact  of  the  existence  of 
God  as  such  Power  of  Thought  eternally  thinking  a 
universe ;  and  the  term  Power  comprises  under  it  what 
Cousin  denominates  "  a  triplicity  in  unity  "  ;  that  is,  Cause, 
Effect,  and  the  Relation  of  causality  subsisting  between 
them. 

32.  Causality  consists  in  the  power  of  thought  passing 


406  UNIVEESALS. 

into  movement  and  a  creation  in  time  and  space  as  the 
actual  thought  of  the  Divine  Thinker  or  Creator,  the  term 
Relation  merely  expressing  the  fact  of  the  sustained  con- 
tinuity of  the  activity  of  this  power,  which  is  in  itself  hy 
its  own  nature  a  self-acting  and  self  directing  cause  of  the 
nature  of  the  power  of  thought  (it  being  of  the  very  nature 
of  Soul  to  move  itself),  and,  as  such,  the  ultimate  fact  of 
all  actuality. 

33.  The  truth  of  this  necessary  Fact,  and  the  actual  ex- 
istence of  such  Being  as  all  actuality  bounded  over,  as  it 
were,  against  all  possibility,  as  Cupid  bounded  out  of  the 
brooding  Night,  can  no  more  be  denied  than  a  man  can 
deny  his  own  existence,  or  that  of  the  universe  around 
him ;  and  it  is  the  last  miracle  that  disappears  from  the 
mind  of  the  philosopher,  when  he  comes  to  discover  and 
see,  with  Bacon,  "  that  the  knowledge  of  causes  only  can 
resolve  the  miracle  of  the  thing,  and  clear  up  the  mental 
astonishment "  ;  *  and  indeed  that  all  things  are  alike  mi- 
raculous and  not  miraculous,  at  once  and  alike  natural  and 
supernatural ;  that  it  is  the  last  fact  of  all  science  and  a 
credible  object  of  firm  belief,  —  not  an  imaginary  faith  in 
an  incredible  dogma  and  an  inconceivable  vision  of  the  un- 
critical fancy,  but  the  undoubting  faith  of  direct  and  im- 
mediate knowledge,  or  Sapience,  and  the  final  haven  of  rest 
for  the  soul ;  as  when  the  explorer,  ascending  the  meridian 
from  the  equator,  reaches  the  highest  actual  and  possible 
verge  at  the  pole,  he  rests,  and  is  satisfied,  seeing  and 
knowing  that  no  higher  is,  or  can  be,  but  that  all  attempt 
to  go  further  must  needs  descend  again  toward  whence  he 
came. 

34.  The  Mind  or  Soul  of  man,  or  animal,  as  far  down  in 
the  zoological  scale  as  any  appearance  of  a  self-directing 
cause,  moving  itself,  can  be  traced  by  the  eye  of  science,  is 
to  be  considered  as  a  special  exhibition  of  the  same  divine 
power  of  thought  exerted  in  a  special  way  and  in  a  particu- 

i  Delineatio,  Works  (Boston),  VII.  46. 


UNIVERSALS.  407 

lar  direction  under  limitations  greater  or  less,  but  identical 
in  fundamental  essence,  differing  only  by  limitation  ;  itself 
likewise  by  virtue  of  such  identical  nature  self-acting  and 
self-directing  cause  so  far,  coming  in  from  the  direction  of 
the  supernatural,  and  rising  by  gradations  in  amount  of 
power  from  the  lowest  point  and  last  dividing  line  of  mere 
instinct  to  the  highest  grade  of  human  intelligence  ;  and 
the  body  of  man,  or  animal,  is  but  a  structure-built  exhibi- 
tion of  the  same  power,  proceeding  from  the  opposite 
direction,  as  it  were,  of  the  physical  and  natural,  and 
ascending  by  corresponding  gradations  of  structure  from 
the  lowest  to  the  highest  type  of  animal  organization,  in- 
vesting and  closing  in  the  soul,  which  'also  comes  in  from 
underneath  and  within  the  physical  web  itself  as  a  special 
stream  of  power  of  the  nature  of  the  power  of  thought 

Thus,  in  this  convolution  of  soul  and  body,  is  constituted 
the  individuality  of  the  man  as  physical  object,  and  his 
personality  as  metaphysical  subject,  and  between  these  fold- 
ings in  of  the  divine  thought  upon  itself  in  the  special  con- 
stitution of  a  finite  soul,  there  arises  therein  a  certain 
limited  sphere  of  practical  action  and  effect  on  the  physical 
and  other  world  external  to  the  soul,  and  a  certain  possi- 
bility of  thinking  existence  for  the  soul  itself,  which  is  yet 
that  same  all  possibility  in  which  the  universe  itself  is  cre- 
ated ;  in  which  limited  sphere  the  finite  soul  has  a  certain 
narrow  range  of  liberty,  creative  play,  and  scope  of  free 
will,  or  choice,  and  a  certain  given  amount  of  power  of 
thinking  and  doing,  under  a  special  consciousness  of  its 
own  ;  all  beyond  this  sphere  of  liberty  and  limitation  being 
the  order  of  divine  providence  in  the  universe,  and,  as 
such,  absolute  fate  (which  is  also  Providence,  says  Bacon) 
for  this  soul :  and  in  the  collision  of  the  external  powers  or 
forces  coming  in  through  the  senses  against  the  soul,  so 
constituted,  as  a  power  acting  in  an  opposite  direction 
against  and  upon  the  physical  phenomena  in  these  external 
powers,  takes  place  all  sense-perception ;  and  in  the  crea- 


408  UNIVERSALS. 

tive  play  of  the  soul  as  a  special  power  of  thought  and  a 
special  creator,  within  its  given  sphere  of  liberty  and  with 
its  given  amount  of  power,  take  place  all  its  own  intellect- 
ual conceptions  and  artistic  creations,  —  its  inner  thought 
and  knowledge,  —  and  all  its  own  doings,  under  its  own 
consciousness,  and  on  its  own  personal  responsibility  so 
far,  with  a  certain  definite  and  proportionate  accountability 
for  consequences  both  to  itself  and  to  the  Higher  Power ; 
first,  physical,  then  juridical,  then  moral,  then  aesthetical, 
and  lastly,  religious  ;  proceeding  in  this  in  the  direct  order 
of  necessity  and  in  the  inverse  order  of  dignity  and  ex- 
cellence to  the  highest  perfection  of  a  finite  soul ;  all  its 
acts*  and  doings  being  the  work  of  the  power  as  cause, 
done  under  the  direction  and  in  the  conscious  presence  of 
the  thinking  person,  within  the  constituted  sphere  of  his 
liberty ;  at  one  time,  or  in  one  instance,  shrinking  down  to 
the  instinctive  point  of  bare  existence  as  soul,  and  at 
another  time,  or  in  another  instance,  swelling  and  expand- 
ing to  a  faculty  of  comprehension,  capable  of  conceiving 
the  known  worlds  and  all  conceivable  worlds,  being  in 
its  highest  exhibition  in  man,  according  to  Bacon,  "  as 
a  mirrour  or  glass,  capable  of  the  image  of  the  universal 
world." 

And  so  it  is  actually  true,  that  in  soul  and  body, 

"  We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of."  —  Temp.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

The  difference  is  not  so  much  in  the  stuff  as  in  the  dreamer. 
The  universe  itself  is  but  the  best  waking  dream  of  Him 
that  never  sleeps ;  while  our  dreams  are  nothing  but  the 
fantastic  creations  of  a  soul  half  awake ;  and  for  the  most 
part  our  waking  dreams  are  not  much  better :  — 

"  True,  I  talk  of  dreams, 
Which  are  the  children  of  an  idle  brain, 
Begot  of  nothing  but  vain  fantasy; 
Which  is  as  thin  of  substance  as  the  air." 

Rom.  and  Jul.,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 


CDPID  AND  NEMESIS.  409 

All  that  which  is  past,  says  Bacon,  "  is  as  a  dream  ;  and  he 
that  hopes  or  depends  upon  time  coming,  dreams  waking." 
And  Poesy,  we  remember,  was  "  the  dream  of  knowledge," 
and  "was  thought  to  be  somewhat  inspired  with  divine 
rapture ;  which  dreams  likewise  present."  And  thus  speaks 
Imogen  in  the  play  :  — 

"  Imo.  I  hope  I  dream ; 

For  so  I  thought  I  was  a  cave-keeper, 
And  cook  to  honest  creatures ;  but 't  is  not  so : 
'T  was  but  a  bolt  of  nothing,  shot  of  nothing,       \ 
Which  the  brain  makes  of  fumes.    Our  very  eyes 

Are  sometimes  like  our  judgments  blind 

The  dream 's  here  still :  even  when  I  wake,  it  is 
Without  me,  as  within  me:  not  imagin'd,  felt." 

Cymb.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

§  4.   CUPID   AND   NEMESIS. 

In  Bacon's  discussion  of  the  Fables  of  Cupid  and  Nem- 
esis, is  to  be  found  the  whole  philosophical  foundation  of 
the  "  Romeo  and  Juliet."  One  main  object  of  the  play  was, 
to  exhibit  as  in  a  model,  under  the  dramatic  form  of  ar- 
tistic creation,  the  essential  nature  and  character  of  love, 
and  that  Juliet  that  was  "  the  perfect  model  of  eternity,"  as 
being  the  executive  beneficence  of  the  creative  power ;  for, 
says  he,  "  love  is  nothing  but  goodness  put  in  motion  or 
applied," x  or  again,  "  the  original  and  unique  force  that 
constitutes  and  fashions  all  things  out  of  matter,  it  being, 
next  to  God,  the  cause  of  causes,  itself  without  cause  "  ;  9 
or,  as  a  more  modern  philosopher  states  it,  love  is  "  the 
essence  of  God,"  and  "  the  idealism  of  Jesus  "  is  but  "  a 
crude  statement  of  the  fact,  that  all  nature  is  the  rapid 
efflux  of  goodness  executing  and  organizing  itself" ;  *  the 
Platonic  and  Christian  love,  or  Milton's 

"  Bright  effluence  of  bright  essence  increate  "  ; 

1  Int.  of  Nature. 

2  Wisd.  of  the  Ancients,  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  122. 
8  Emerson's  Essays,  1. 183,  281. 


410  CUPID  AND  NEMESIS. 

and  the  same  that  turns  Dante's  heaven,  and  rains  its  virtue 
down :  — 

"  E  questo  Cielo  non  ha  altro  dove, 
Che  la  mente  divina,  in  che  s'  accende 
L'  amor  che  V  volge  e  la  virtu  ch'  ei  piove  " ; 

or,  as  Romeo  defines  it :  — 

"  O,  anything,  of  nothing  first  create ! " 

and  Juliet,  thus  :  — 

"  Jul.    And  yet  I  wish  but  for  the  thing  I  have: 
My  bounty  is  as  boundless  as  the  sea, 
My  love  as  deep ;  the  more  I  give  to  thee, 
The  more  I  have,  for  both  are  infinite."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

Not  only  the  philosophy,  but  even  the  very  language  and 
imagery  of  these  Fables  of  Cupid  and  Nemesis,  as  related 
by  Bacon,  are  distinctly  traceable  in  the  play,  as  in  this 
passage :  — 

"  Jul.    Spread  thy  close  curtain,  love-performing  night ! 

Come,  civil  night, 

Thou  sober-suited  matron,  all  in  black, 

And  learn  me  how  to  lose  a  winning  match, 

Play'd  for  a  pair  of  stainless  maidenhoods: 

Hood  my  unmann'd  blood,  bating  in  my  cheeks, 

With  thy  black  mantle ;  till  strange  love,  grown  bold, 

Think  true  love  acted  simple  modesty. 

Come,  night,  come  Romeo,  come  thou  day  in  night; 

For  thou  will  lie  upon  the  wings  of  night, 

Whiter  than  new  snow  on  a  raven's  back."  — Act  111.  Sc.  2. 

This  is  the  same  brooding  wing  of  Night  under  which 
Cupid  was  hatched  and  born,  in  the  complete  antithesis  of 
something  and  nothing,  affirmative  and  negative,  light  and 
darkness ;  and  the  same  ideas  and  imagery  pervade  the 
following  lines :  — 

"  Rom.     O,  she  doth  teach  the  torches  to  burn  bright! 
Her  beauty  hangs  upon  the  cheek  of  night, 
Like  a  rich  jewel  in  an  Ethiop's  ear; 
Beauty  too  rich  for  use,  for  Earth  too  dear ! 
So  shews  a  snowy  dove  trooping  with  crows, 
As  yonder  lady  o'er  her  fellows  shews."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 


CUPID  AND  NEMESIS.  411 

And  again,  thus  :  — 

"  King.     0,  paradox !  Black  is  the  badge  of  Hell, 
The  hue  of  dungeons,  and  the  shade  of  night ; 
And  beauty's  crest  becomes  the  heavens  well." 

Love's  L.  L.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

And  thus  the  Sonnet,  with  a  color  of  the  same  inspira- 
tion :  — 

"  Therefore  my  mistress'  eyes  are  raven  black, 

Her  eyes  so  suited :  and  they  mourners  seem 

At  such,  who  not  born  fair,  no  beauty  lack, 

Slandering  creation  with  a  false  esteem : 
Yet  so  they  mourn,  becoming  of  their  woe, 
That  every  tongue  says,  beauty  should  do  so."  — cxxvii. 

In  like  manner,  the  language  and  imagery  as  well  as  the 
leading  ideas  of  the  fable  of  Nemesis  may  be  traced  in 
many  passages  toward  the  end  of  the  play :  the  following 
instances  will  explain  themselves  without  further  comment. 

In  the  interpretation  of  this  fable,  in  the  Wisdom  of  the 
Ancients,  Bacon  says  :  — 

"  They  say  she  was  the  daughter  of  Night  and  Ocean.  She  is  represented 
with  wings  and  a  crown :  an  ashen  spear  in  her  right  hand :  a  phial  with 

Ethiops  in  it,  in  her  left;  sitting  upon  a  stag The  parents  of  this 

goddess  were  Ocean  and  Night;  that  is,  the  vicissitude  of  things,  and  the 
dark  and  secret  judgment  of  God.  For  the  vicissitude  of  things  is  aptly 
represented  by  the  Ocean,  by  reason  of  its  perpetual  flowing  and  ebbing; 
and  secret  providence  is  rightly  set  forth  under  the  image  of  Night" 

And  thus  it  begins  to  appear  in  the  play :  — 

"  Rom.    Love  is  a  smoke  rais'd  with  the  fume  of  sighs ; 
Being  purg'd,  a  fire  sparkling  in  lovers'  eyes; 
Being  vex'd,  a  sea  nourish'd  with  lovers'  tears."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Cap.    How  now !  a  conduit,  girl  ?  What !  still  in  tears  ? 
Evermore  showering  ?    In  a  little  body 
Thou  counterfeit's!  a  bark,  a  sea,  a  wind. 
For  still  thy  eyes,  which  I  may  call  the  sea, 
Do  ebb  and  flow  with  tears ;  the  bark  thy  body  is, 
Sailing  in  this  salt  flood ;  the  winds,  thy  sighs ; 
Who,  raging  with  thy  tears,  and  they  with  them, 
Without  a  sudden  calm,  will  overset 
Thy  tempest-toss'd  body."  — Act  III.  Sc.  5. 


412  CUPID  AND  NEMESIS. 

Again :  — 

"  Nemesis  is  described  as  wing'd ;  because  of  the  sudden  and  unforeseen 
revolutions  of  things  " ; 

and  in  the  play,  this  sudden  revolution  and  change  of 
things  is  introduced  in  these  lines  :  — 

"  Cap.    All  things,  that  we  ordained  festival, 
Turn  from  their  office  to  black  funeral, 
Our  instruments,  to  melancholy  bells ; 
Our  wedding  cheer,  to  a  sad  burial  feast; 
Our  solemn  hymns  to  sullen  dirges  change; 
Our  bridal  flowers  serve  for  a  buried  corse, 
And  all  things  change  them  to  the  contrary."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  5. 

And  again,  the  story  continues  :  — 

"  Nemesis  is  distinguished  also  with  a  crown ;  in  allusion  to  the  envious 
and  malignant  nature  of  the  vulgar;  for  when  the  fortunate  and  the  power- 
ful fall,  the  people  commonly  exult  and  set  a  crown  upon  the  head  of 
Nemesis  " ; 

which  shows  itself  in  the  play,  thus  :  — 

"  Nurse.    Shame  come  to  Romeo ! 

Jul.  Blister'd  be  thy  tongue, 

For  such  a  wish !     He  was  not  born  to  shame : 
Upon  his  brow  shame  is  asham'd  to  sit; 
For  't  is  a  throne  where  honour  may  be  crown'd 
Sole  monarch  of  the  universal  Earth."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

The  story  proceeds  :  — 

"  The  spear  in  her  right  hand  relates  to  those  whom  she  actually  strikes 
and  transfixes.  And  if  there  be  any  whom  she  does  not  make  victims  of 
calamity  and  misfortune,  to  them  she  nevertheless  exhibits  that  dark  and 
ominous  spectre,  in  her  left :  for  mortals  must  needs  be  visited,  even  when 
they  stand  at  the  summit  of  felicity,  with  images  of  death,  diseases,  mis- 
fortunes, perfidies  of  friends,  plots  of  enemies,  changes  of  fortune  and  the 
like;  even  like  those  Ethiops  in  the  phial." 

And  the  play  makes  use  of  all  this  even  to  the  phial  full 
of  Ethiops,  spectres,  and  images  of  death,  thus  :  — 

"  Jul.    Or  hide  me  nightly  in  a  charnel-house, 
O'er-cover'd  quite  with  dead  men's  rattling  bones, 
With  reeky  shanks,  and  yellow  chapless  skulls ; 
Or  bid  me  go  into  a  new-made  grave, 
And  hide  me  with  a  dead  man  in  his  shroud ; 
Things  that  to  hear  them  told  have  made  me  tremble ; 


CUPID  AND  NEMESIS.  418 

And  I  will  do  it  without  fear  or  doubt, 
To  live  an  unstain'd  wife  to  my  sweet  love.  .  .  . 
Fri.    Take  thou  this  phial,  being  then  in  bed, 
And  this  distilled  liquor  drink  thou  off; 
When  presently  through  all  thy  veins  shall  run 
A  cold  and  drowsy  humour;  for  no  pulse 
Shall  keep  his  native  progress,  but  surcease: 
No  warmth,  no  breath,  shall  testify  thou  livest; 
The  roses  in  thy  lips  and  cheeks  shall  fade 
To  paly  ashes ;  thy  eyes'  windows  fall, 
Like  death,  when  he  shuts  up  the  day  of  life; 
Each  part,  depriv'd  of  supple  government, 
Shall,  stiff  and  stark  and  cold,  appear  like  death: 
And  in  this  borrowed  likeness  of  shrunk  death 
Thou  shalt  continue  two  and  forty  hours, 
And  then  awake  as  from  a  pleasant  sleep.  —  Act  IV.  8c.  1. 


Jul.    My  dismal  scene  I  needs  must  act  alone.  — 

Come,  phial.  — 

Or,  if  I  live,  is  it  not  very  like, 

The  horrible  conceit  of  death  and  night, 

Together  with  the  terror  of  the  place,  — 

As  in  a  vault,  an  ancient  receptacle, 

Where,  for  these  many  hundred  years,  the  bonea 

Of  all  my  buried  ancestors  are  pack'd ; 

Where  bloody  Tybalt,  yet  but  green  in  earth, 

Lies  festering  in  his  shroud ;  where  as  they  say, 

At  some  hours  in  the  night  spirits  resort."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  And  certainly."  continues  Bacon  with  the  fable,  "  when  I  have  read 
that  chapter  of  Caius  Plinius  in  which  he  has  collected  the  misfortunes  and 
miseries  of  Augustus  Caesar, —  him  whom  I  thought  of  all  men  the  most 
fortunate,  and  who  had  moreover  a  certain  art  of  using  and  enjoying  his 
fortune,  and  in  whose  mind  were  no  traces  of  swelling,  of  tightness,  of  soft- 
ness, of  confusion,  or  of  melancholy,  (insomuch  that  once  he  had  determined 
to  die  voluntarily,)  —  great  and  powerful  must  this  goddess  be,  I  have 
thought,  when  such  a  victim  was  brought  to  the  altar." 

And  of  this  swelling,  tightness,  softness,  confusion,  melan- 
choly, and  voluntary  dying,  and  the  splendid  victim  of  this 
powerful  goddess  brought  to  the  altar,  we  have  some  un- 
mistakable exhibition  in  this  play ;  and  these  misfortunes 
and  miseries  of  Nemesis  appear  again  in  Romeo's  speech 
to  the  Apothecary,  all  these  several  topics  falling  in  at  the 
proper  time  and  place,  and  in  such  form  as  the  course  of 
the  drama  requires  :  — 


414  CUPID  AND  NEMESIS. 

"  Rom.    Art  thou  so  base  and  full  of  wretchedness, 
And  fear'st  to  die  ?  famine  is  in  thy  cheeks, 
Need  and  oppression  starveth  in  thy  eyes, 
Contempt  and  beggary  hang  upon  thy  back.1 
The  world  is  not  thy  friend,  nor  the  world's  law: 
The  world  atFords  no  law  to  make  thee  rich; 
Then  be  not  poor,  but  break  it,  and  take  this."  — Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

But  Nemesis  more  particularly  represents  the  dark  and 
secret  judgment  of  God ;  and,  continues  Bacon,  in  the 
fable :  — 

"  This  Nemesis  of  the  Darkness  (the  human  not  agreeing  with  the  divine 
judgment)  was  matter  of  observation  even  among  the  heathen. 

Ripheus  fell  too, 
Than  whom  a  juster  and  truer  man 
In  all  his  dealings  was  not  found  in  Troy. 
But  the  gods  judged  not  so :  "  — 

which  difference  of  the  divine  and  human  judgment  creeps 
into  the  end  of  the  play  thus  :  — 

"  Fri.  Lady,  come  from  that  nest 

Of  death,  contagion,  and  unnatural  sleep. 
A  greater  Power  than  we  can  contradict 
Hath  thwarted  our  intents :  come,  come  away. 


Prince.     See,  what  a  scourge  is  laid  upon  your  hate, 
That  Heaven  finds  means  to  kill  your  joys  with  love." 

Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

"  Fri.    Peace,  ho !  for  shame !  confusion's  cure  lives  not 
In  these  confusions.    Heaven  and  yourself 
Had  part  in  this  fair  maid ;  now  Heaven  hath  all ; 
And  all  the  better  is  it  for  the  maid : 
Your  part  in  her  you  could  not  keep  from  death, 
But  Heaven  keeps  his  part  in  eternal  life. 

Dry  up  your  tears,  and  stick  your  rosemary 
On  this  fair  corse :  and,  as  the  custom  is, 
In  all  her  best  array  bear  her  to  the  church ; 

1  This  play  seems  to  have  undergone  considerable  emendation  subse- 
quently to  the  quarto  of  1597,  which,  in  place  of  this  and  the  preceding  line, 
reads  as  follows :  — 

"  Upon  thy  back  hangs  ragged  miserie, 
And  starved  famine  dwelleth  in  thy  cheeks." 

See  White's  Shakes.,  X.  132  ;  Notes,  189. 


SCIENCE  OF  MATTER.  415 

For  though  fond  Nature  bids  us  all  lament, 

Yet  nature's  tears  are  reason's  merriment."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  5. 


§    5.    SCIENCE   OF   MATTER. 

The  general  scope  of  Bacon's  theory  of  universals  was 
essentially  and  at  bottom  the  same  with  that  of  the  higher 
modern  philosophy  :  its  end  was  to  be  Philosophy  itself. 
His  discussions  concerning  the  nature  of  cause  and  form 
make  it  clear  that  he  had  arrived,  substantially,  at  the 
transcendental  conceptions  of  both.  Forms,  as  anything 
separate  and  distinct  from  the  real  essence  of  things  and 
those  fundamental  and  eternal  laws  of  thought  under  which 
essence  takes  form,  were  mere  fictions  of  the  imagination  ; 
and  matter,  as  anything  distinct  from  the  last  and  positive 
power  and  cause  of  nature,  was  simply  a  fantastic  super- 
stition. "  His  form  and  cause  conjoined "  in  the  ghost 
exactly  illustrate  the  metaphysical  conception  of  the  true 
nature  of  matter  and  form,  cause  and  effect,  noumena  and 
phenomena,  and  the  mode  and  manner  of  action  and  opera- 
tion of  that  uncaused  power  that  creates  all  things  ;  that  is 
to  say,  that  it  is,  in  fact  and  reality,  a  power  of  the  nature 
of  the  power  of  thought,  wholly,  as  the  only  actual  sub- 
stance, essence,  or  matter,  eternally  in  activity,  under  laws 
which  are  necessary  laws  of  all  possible  thinking,  divine  or 
human,  and  in  reference  to  the  divine  mind,  identical  with 
the  laws  of  nature  or  physics  so  far,  and  in  the  modes  of 
thought  only,  giving  therein  the  substances  of  all  created 
things  and  their  forms,  together  with  the  order,  particular 
distribution,  movement,  and  total  plan,  moral  fitness,  per- 
fection, and  artistic  beauty,  exhibited  in  the  entire  provi- 
dential scheme  and  purpose  in  the  creation  of  any  universe, 
past,  present,  or  future  :  whence  comes  for  us,  in  the  study 
and  contemplation  of  the  past  and  present  universe  that 
lies  open  before  us  as  the  book  of  God's  works  so  far,  a 
foreground  and  promise  of  the  certain  (so  far  as  certain), 
the   possible,  and   the  probable   continuation    thereof  in 


416  SCIEXCE  OF  MATTER. 

the  future  ;  —  an  uncreated  thinking  Power,  thinking  His 
universe.  And  so  he  imagined  it  possible  for  the  Creator 
to  bring  the  disembodied  spirit  or  ghost  into  view  of  the 
physical  eye  of  Hamlet  Not  that  this  was  possible  in 
actual  human  experience,  but  that  by  a  certain  poetic 
license,  the  thing  might  be  conceived  in  the  mind  as  possi- 
ble in  the  artistically  creative  manner  in  which  the  imagi- 
nation works.  A  strictly  scientific  observation  of  facts  in 
external  nature  clearly  proves  that  it  would  be  utterly  im- 
possible for  the  human  eye,  organized  and  constructed  as 
it  is,  actually  to  see  and  perceive  any  object,  substance,  or 
thing  whatever  so  thin  and  ethereal  in  its  nature  as  the 
spiritual  form  of  a  disembodied  soul  must  be  ;  though  such 
a  spiritual  creation,  on  the  metaphysical  principles  which 
Bacon  had  laid  down  and  expounded,  and  in  accordance 
with  exact  scientific  thinking,  too,  might  have  a  real  exist- 
ence in  nature  as  a  finite  created  object,  or  subject,  and  a 
substantial  thing,  existing  in  time  and  space  as  a  part  of  the 
existent  universe,  though  invisible  to  mortal  eyes :  — 

"Ham.  Touching  this  vision  here,  — 

It  is  an  honest  ghost,  that  let  me  tell  you."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

Nevertheless,  even  Hamlet  himself  was  not  quite  sure  of 

him :  — 

"Ham.  The  spirit  that  I  have  seen 

May  be  the  Devil :  and  the  Devil  hath  power 
T'  assume  a  pleasing  shape ;  yea,  and,  perhaps, 
Out  of  my  weakness  and  melancholy 
(As  he  is  very  potent  with  such  spirits) 
Abuses  me  to  damn  me.    I  '11  have  grounds 
More  relative  than  this :  the  play  's  the  thing, 
Wherein  I  '11  catch  the  conscience  of  the  King."  — Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

The  natural  eye,  when  the  sunlight  streams  in  at  a 
window,  or  some  small  crevice,  can  see  very  fine  particles 
of  dust  floating  in  the  air,  which  are  wholly  invisible 
beyond  the  stream  of  light :  yet  this  dust  is  a  gross  cloud 
of  solid  particles,  compared  with  the  air  itself,  which,  though 


SCIENCE  OF  MATTER.  417 

a  fluid  mass  of  atoms,  is  yet  utterly  invisible  to  human 
sight,  even  with  the  aid  of  the  most  powerful  microscope. 
The  blue  sky  that  we  see  is  not  so  much  the  air  as  the 
totality  of  a  stratum  forty  five  miles  thick  ;  whilst  the  sub- 
stance of  any  spiritual  body  must  be  infinitely  more  subtil 
than  the  air,  else  it  might  be  bottled  like  a  gas,  and  ex- 
amined by  the  chemist.  Nevertheless,  we  can  easily  imag- 
ine an  eye  to  be  so  constituted  as  to  be  capable  of  seeing 
such  an  object ;  but  it  would  necessarily  be  a  superhuman 
eye.  Such  an  eye  and  such  a  form  are  supposed  in  the 
'•  Tempest,"  when  the  supernatural  magician,  Prospero, 
says  to  his  invisible  Genius,  Ariel  — 

"  Go,  make  thyself  like  to  a  nymph  o'  the  sea; 
Be  subject  to  no  sight  but  mine;  invisible 
To  every  eye-ball  else."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

In  truth,  modern  science  ascertains  that  all  matter  that 
we  know  of,  even  the  most  solid  rocks  of  the  mountains, 
can  be  melted  down  and  resolved  into  gases  more  invisible 
than  the  air  we  breathe.  Some  gases  are  so  thin  as  to  be 
scarcely  ponderable  in  any  balance  that  can  be  constructed 
by  human  art.  The  ether  that  fills  interplanetary  space, 
retards  comets,  is  the  medium  of  transmission  of  the  radi- 
ating waves  of  light  and  heat,  and  is  supposed  to  pervade, 
or  to  traverse,  the  most  solid  bodies,  escapes  all  scrutiny  of 
scientific  instruments  and  experimentation.  Electricity, 
though  appearing  in  some  respects  to  act  like  a  fluid,  and 
imagined  by  some  to  consist  of  infinitesimal  globules,  is 
certainly  so  subtil  and  ethereal  as  to  be  utterly  impondera- 
ble by  any  means  yet  known  ;  but,  if  a  stroke  of  lightning 
could  be  caught  in  a  pair  of  scales,  its  weight,  that  is,  the 
degree  and  measure  of  force  with  which  it  struck,  in  that 
particular  instance,  might  be  exactly  ascertained  and  set 
down  in  figures  ;  and  it  is  questionable  whether  electricity 
can  come  under  any  scientific  theory  of  atoms,  or  equiv- 
alents, at  least,  otherwise  than  as  just  so  many  strokes  of  it 
as  have  been  so  weighed  and  set  down :  in  short,  whether  it 

27 


418  SCIENCE  OF  MATTER. 

be  not  some  more  direct  exhibition  of  the  creative  power, 
and  itself  a  pure  totality  of  power,  with  only  a  certain 
polarity  and  a  certain  duality  of  positive  and  negative. 
And  motion,  a  something  still  further  removed  from  what 
is  commonly  understood  by  matter,  may  be  the  mere  result 
and  consequence  of  a  more  or  less  immediate  and  direct 
exhibition  of  that  same  pure  power. 

One  year,  an  astronomer  raises  a  new  telescope  to  the 
heavens,  that  sweeps  nine  or  ten  times  as  much  space  as 
the  largest  one  did,  the  year  before,  and  while  he  and  his 
telescope  are  whirling  through  the  circumference  of  the 
earth,  in  a  day,  and  the  earth,  through  its  orbit,  in  a  year, 
and  the  solar  system  itself  is  making  17,000  miles  or  so,  in 
an  hour,  on  a  circle  of  the  heavens  so  immeasurable  that  the 
length  of  the  arc  travelled  over  since  the  beginning  of 
astronomy  cannot  be  distinguished  from  a  straight  line,  he 
looks  across  the  astronomical  history  in  time  and  space  of 
whole  solar  systems,  and  sees,  at  the  remotest  reach  of  his 
new  sight,  what  appears  to  be  a  vast  nebulous  cloud  gather- 
ing to  a  centre,  catches  it,  perhaps,  in  the  first  half  turn  of 
its  spiral  winding,  and  reveals  a  new  wonder  of  creation  to 
the  eye  of  physical  science.  The  true  philosopher  beholds 
with  awe  this  work  of  the  creative  power,  proceeds  with 
reverence  to  observe  and  study  the  mode,  manner,  and 
method  of  the  proceeding,  searches  for  the  cause  and  law 
of  it,  and  endeavors  to  penetrate  even  to  the  point  of  origin 
of  the  new  phenomenon  ;  for  he  sees  it  to  be  at  all  events 
the  work  of  Him  whose  thought  is  reality.  A  machine 
philosopher  resorts  to  new  observation,  calculation,  and 
experimentation,  seeking  only  to  find  out  the  physical  laws 
and  forces  and  "  the  properties  of  matter,"  whereby  this 
apparent  ethereal  cloud  may  condense  itself  into  a  solar 
system  of  revolving  globes,  thinking,  perhaps,  that  physical 
laws  and  forces  and  a  cloud  of  matter  should  explain  the 
whole  affair  without  more.  Empedocles  had  got  as  far  as 
this  about  twenty-three  centuries  ago. 


SCIENCE  OF  MATTER.  419 

The  microscope  resolves  all  vegetable  and  animal  struc- 
tures into  architectural  compactions  of  cells,  globules,  and 
particles  ;  and  it  discovers  that  whole  strata  of  the  earth's 
crust  are  made  up  of  the  dead  shells  of  microscopic  mol- 
luscs. The  geologist  takes  the  earth  itself  to  pieces,  layer 
by  layer,  as  an  antiquarian  would  unroll  a  mummy,  down  to 
the  "  flinty  ribs  "  and  molten  lavas  of  the  inner  bowels  ;  a 
Gregory  Watt  will  hew  a  block  of  basalt  out  of  a  mountain, 
melt  it  back  into  lava,  and,  in  the  cooling,  by  various  man- 
ipulation, crystallize  it  again  into  all  sorts  of  primitive  rock  ; 
and  the  chemist  will  take  all  the  rocks  and  minerals  of  the 
earth  and  blow  them  into  invisible  and  imponderable  airs, 
until  "  the  great  globe  itself"  under  our  feet  would  seem  to 
dissolve,  — 

"  melt, 
Thaw,  and  resolve  itself  into  a  dew," 

or  into  a  nebulous  cloud,  under  our  very  eyes,  and 

"  Leave  not  a  rack  behind,"  — 

not  a  reek,  not  so  much  as  an  ethereal  cometary  vapor, 
through  which  a  telescopic  star  might  shine  with  undimin- 
ished lustre,  or  even  into  an  invisible,  intangible,  imponder- 
able, all-pervading  ethereal  medium ;  or  rather,  not  into  a 
dew,  nor  a  cloud,  nor  a  reek,  nor  an  ethereal  medium,  but 
into  inconceivable  "  airy  nothing,"  unless  we  are  to  take 
laws  and  forces,  power  and  law,  cause  and  effect,  and  living, 
thinking  soul,  to  be  something  worth  investigation  also,  and 
study  metaphysics  as  well  as  physics. 

Scientific  men  consider  it  established,  that  light  is  an 
electrical  phenomenon  of  a  luminous  body  (or  another 
mode  or  degree  of  one  and  the  same  force)  ;  but  electric 
action  must  be  taken  as  the  mediate  instrument  rather 
than  as  the  primal  source  of  the  power.  The  spherical 
concentric  waves  travel  throughout  this  undulating  ethereal 
medium  which  is  so  thin  as  to  be,  not  only  invisible,  and 
unexaminable  by  scientific  instruments,  but  not  even  to 


420  SCIENCE  OF  MATTER. 

reflect  light ;  but  nothing  travels  but  motion  or  power  :  the 
medium  merely  vibrates  in  place,  and  the  motion  which 
travels  on  the  waves  is  merely  transmitted  power,  as  if  it 
were  a  flash  of  thought  travelling  along  a  telegraphic  wire. 
That  travelling  force  strikes  the  eye,  pursues  the  optic 
nerve,  reaches  the  mind,  and  in  the  collision,  delivers  its 
message  in  a  sense-perception ;  and  the  modifications  of  the 
vibration,  as  breadth  of  wave,  or  rapidity  of  stroke, — the 
differences,  —  are  recognized  by  the  perceiving  soul  for 
difference  of  brightness,  or  of  color,  or  of  heat,  or  of  chem- 
ical force,  or  mechanical  power ;  for  the  lighting,  heating, 
chemical,  and  mechanical  properties  of  the  sun's  rays  would 
seem  to  depend,  in  like  manner,  upon  certain  merely  instru- 
mental modifications  and  differences  in  the  mode  of  action 
of  the  one  active  power.  So  of  sound  and  hearing,  touch, 
taste,  and  smell :  indeed,  all  sense-perception  is  of  like 
nature. 

It  is  said,  that  the  French  astronomers  resisted  for  a 
time  the  Newtonian  theory  of  the  celestial  mechanics,  for 
the  reason  that  he  was  supposed  to  maintain  the  idea  of 
attraction  at  a  distance,  and  used  that  term,  instead  of  grav- 
itation or  weight.  The  objection,  as  M.  Auguste  Comte 
thought,  was  doubtless  a  good  one ;  but  gravitation,  or 
weight,  as  a  last  cause,  or  as  any  final  account  of  the  mat- 
ter, would  seem  to  be  no  better  than  attraction  ;  for  gravi- 
tation supposes  one  body  to  have  the  faculty  of  pushing 
itself  toward  another  body,  while  attraction  supposes  one 
body  to  have  the  power  of  pulling  another  toward  itself 
from  a  distance,  whenever  it  should  happen  to  come  suf- 
ficiently within  its  reach.  And  so  many  seem  to  think. 
Mr.  Faraday,  however,  more  lately,  recognizing  the  princi- 
ple of  the  conservation  of  force,  claims  to  be  on  the  side  of 
Newton  himself  in  rejecting  the  idea  of  attraction  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  seems  willing  to  include  gravitation  in  the  same 
category  with  light,  heat,  electricity,  magnetism,  and  other 
modes  of  force,  as  being  probably  but  another  modification 


SCIENCE  OF  MATTER.  421 

of  one  and  the  same  total  force,  or  original  active  cause, 
proceeding  from  a  common  centre  of  unity ; 1  and  Berkeley, 
long  ago,  as  well  as  Bacon  and  others  before  him  as  far 
back  as  Plato  at  least,  clearly  saw,  that  the  manner  of  this 
tendency  was  not  (in  the  language  of  Berkeley)  "  by  the 
mutual  drawing  of  bodies,"  but  rather  by  "  their  being 
impelled  or  protruded,"  and  that  it  might  as  well  be  termed 
"  impulse  or  protrusion  as  attraction  "  :  rather  better  ;  for 
the  doctrine  of  protrusion  may  admit  of  a  single  protrud- 
ing power,  or  unity  in  the  first  moving  cause.  Bacon  pro- 
posed to  determine  this  thing  by  experiment :  "  whether 
the  gravity  of  bodies  to  the  earth  arose  from  an  attraction 
of  the  parts  of  matter  towards  each  other,  or  was  a  ten- 
dency towards  the  centre  of  the  earth."  (Nov.  Org.)  Again 
he  says,  in  the  "  Intellectual  Globe  " :  "  For  as  to  what  is 
asserted  of  a  motion  to  the  earth's  centre  [on  the  theory  of 
attraction],  that  woidd  be  a  sort  of  potent  nothing  dragging 
to  itself  such  large  masses ;  whereas  body  cannot  be  affected 
except  by  body."  Nevertheless,  the  commonly  received 
notion  would  do  well  enough  for  poetic  metaphor :  — 

"  Cress.  Time,  force,  and  death, 

Do  to  this  body  what  extremes  you  can, 
But  the  strong  base  and  building  of  my  love 
Is  as  the  very  centre  of  the  Earth, 
Drawing  all  things  to  it."  —  Tro.  and  Cress.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

But  while  denying  that  mere  empty  place,  or  an  imaginary 
mathematical  point,  could  be  supposed  to  have  any  power 
to  draw  a  distant  body  toward  itself,  he  seems  to  have  con- 
jectured, at  least,  that  "  a  dense  and  compact  mass,  at  a 
great  distance  from  the  Earth,  would  hang  like  the  Earth 
itself,  and  not  fall,  unless  thrust  down  " ;  that  is  to  say,  if  it 
moved  at  all,  it  would  necessarily  have  to  be  moved  by 
some  protruding  force.  Indeed,  it  is  wholly  inconceivable 
how  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  any  other,  can  be  drawn  towards 

l  Correlation  and  Conservation  of  Forces,  by  Youmans.    New  York,  1865, 
p.  378-381. 


422  SCIENCE  OF  MATTER. 

each  other  by  any  force  going  forth  out  of  one  to  lay  hold 
of  another  at  a  distance,  and  draw  it  toward  itself:  the  very 
idea  would  seem  to  be  absurd,  and  fit  only  for  the  depart- 
ment of  theological  incomprehensibilities.  They  gravitate 
toward  each  other,  undoubtedly,  and  by  virtue  of  a  power 
acting  from  within,  or  from  a  common  centre,  outwardly, 
a  pushing,  not  a  pulling  power.  In  fact,  all  powers  in 
nature  would  seem  to  act  from  within  outwards,  as  Herder 
observed. 

Prof.  Airy,  it  is  said,  has  ascertained,  by  the  experiment 
of  weighing  a  body  at  the  depth  of  1260  feet  in  a  coal-pit, 
that  this  gravitating  tendency  of  one  body  toward  another 
(according  to  the  law  of  inverse  proportion  to  the  square 
of  the  distance)  was  greater  by  the  t^otto  Par^  when  the 
centres  of  gravity  of  the  two  bodies  were  thus  brought  so 
much  nearer  together  than  they  were  at  the  surface : 
whereas  on  the  pulling  theory,  it  should  have  been  less. 
Those  who  still  follow  the  supposed  doctrine  of  Newton, 
imagine  this  attracting  power  to  be  "  always  existing  around 
the  sun  and  thence  reaching  forth  through  space  to  lay  hold 
of  any  body  that  may  come  within  its  reach ;  and  not  only 
around  the  sun,  but  around  each  particle  of  matter  that  has 
existence." 1  As  this  is  a  fundamental  point  in  our  whole 
business,  let  us  stop  to  consider  it. 

Now,  if  this  were  true,  the  attracting  power  that  so  goes 
forth  from  around  all  the  particles  of  matter  which  com- 
pose that  portion  of  earth  1260  feet  thick,  that  lies  above 
the  body  weighed  at  that  depth,  and  which,  on  this  theory, 
must  draw  toward  themselves  from  all  directions,  would 
tend  to  lift  up  the  weighed  body,  counteracting  so  far  the 
pulling  force  of  the  mass  on  the  other  side  of  it ;  and  it 
would  weigh  less  than  at  the  surface :  whereas  by  the 
experiment  it  actually  weighs  more. 

On  the  other  theory,  that  of  a  power  acting  from  within 
outwards  in  every  body  and  in  every  particle  of  matter,  and 
i  Annual  of  Sci.  Bis.,  by  Wells,  1856. 


SCIENCE  OF  MATTER.  423 

tending  to  drive  or  approach  them  toward  each  other,  at  all 
distances,  but  still  directly  as  the  mass  and  inversely  as  the 
square  of  the  distance,  we  have  a  power  the  effect  of  which 
is,  necessarily,  to  keep  all  the  particles  of  a  body  compacted 
together  toward  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  body  with  a 
force  sufficient  to  maintain  the  particular  form  and  consti- 
tution of  the  body  itself,  while  increasing  in  each  particle 
with  proximity,  and  tending  to  produce  greater  density 
toward  the  centre ;  but  this  tendency  toward  the  centre  is 
at  the  same  time  restrained,  resisted,  and  limited  by  that 
power  from  within  each  particle  which  gives  it  existence  as 
a  particular  form  of  substance ;  thus  producing  an  equi- 
librium of  stationary  balance  among  all  the  particles  of  the 
body,  wherein  is  the  stability  and  permanence  of  the  body 
as  a  whole,  and  the  actual  density  and  form  of  the  body : 
hence  every  variety  of  form. 

Certain  experiments  of  M.  Mosotti  on  the  Epinian 
theory  would  seem  to  prove  the  existence  of  a  force  in 
bodies,  as  he  says,  "  repulsive  at  the  smallest  distances,  a 
little  on,  vanishing,  afterwards  attractive  "  [or,  as  he  might 
as  well  have  said,  protrusive]  "  and  at  all  sensible  distances 
attracting  [protruding]  in  proportion  to  the  inverse  square 
of  the  distance  " ;  as  when  a  comet  is  driving  toward  the 
sun,  a  repulsive  force  in  the  sun,  at  a  certain  distance, 
drives  back  the  ethereal  vapor  into  a  long  tail  or  streamer, 
while  nucleus  and  tail  still  hold  a  course  together  toward 
the  sun.  But  over  and  above  that  exhibition  of  force  which 
is  necessary  in  order  to  constitute  the  given  body  itself, 
there  must  still  be  exerted  from  within  the  whole  body,  or 
upon  it,  outwardly,  that  certain  overplus  of  force,  which  is 
necessary  in  order  to  give  the  body  its  motion  of  transla- 
tion, or  change  of  relative  place,  and  which  moves  or  drives 
it  toward  another  distant  body.  This  force,  as  well  as  the 
other,  may  always  be  inversely  proportional  to  the  square 
of  the  distance,  and  may  always  be  taken,  mathematically, 
as  a  force  acting  at  and  from  the  centre  of  gravity  only : 


424  SCIENCE  OF  MATTER. 

and  hence  the  stability  of  a  body,  a  sun,  a  solar  system,  a 
stellar  system,  and  an  entire  universe  of  systems. 

In  short,  there  being  no  such  thing  as  an  attracting  or 
pulling  power  in  the  stratum  of  earth  above  the  weighed 
body,  in  this  experiment,  but  only  a  protrusive  power  aDd 
motion  in  the  whole  Earth  as  one  body,  the  body  weighed 
is  left  free  to  tend  toward  the  centre  of  the  Earth  by  the 
same  force  and  law  as  at  the  surface ;  and  the  Earth  as  a 
whole  body  has  a  tendency  toward  the  weighed  body,  by 
virtue  of  that  controlling  overplus  of  protrusive  force  which 
is  to  be  taken  as  acting,  on  the  whole,  from  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  the  Earth  ;  and  so  the  body  weighs  more  be- 
cause the  two  centres  of  gravity,  the  two  bodies,  are  nearer 
to  each  other,  and  by  virtue  of  one  and  the  same  original 
impelling  power. 

This  unphilosophical  idea  of  attraction  as  a  pulling 
power  has  tended  to  perpetuate  a  narrow  and  perverted 
use  of  the  inductive  method,  and  almost  to  bund  the  eye 
of  science  to  any  true  vision,  or  comprehension,  of  the 
Baconian  induction,  which  was  to  be  a  rational  method  for 
the  true  interpretation  of  Nature.  The  ancients  had  con- 
cluded that  nothing  could  be  certainly  known  ;  Bacon,  that 
nothing  could  be  certainly  known,  without  the  right  use  of 
the  senses  and  the  intellect ;  and  the  disciples  of  attrac- 
tion and  of  the  properties  of  dead  substratum  have  assumed 
that  nothing  can  be  known  but  by  the  senses,  sensible  ex- 
perience, and  instrumental  experimentation,  without  much 
help  from  the  intellect.  The  inductive  method  as  used  by 
them  is  good  enough  for  certain  purposes  and  within  limits ; 
but  it  can  never  arrive  at  a  philosophy  of  the  universe, 
until  it  be  used  "  universally  "  with  Plato  and  Bacon,  and 
for  the  actual  interpretation  of  all  Nature  ;  for  all  the  par- 
ticular facts  and  phenomena  together,  that  are  within  the 
possible  reach  of  the  senses  and  experimental  observation, 
can  never  constitute  a  universe,  but  only,  at  best,  a  sort  of 
Humboldtian   cosmos.     By   that   way  alone,  the   inquirer 


SCIENCE  OF  MATTER.  425 

can  never  arrive  at  any  conception  of  the  unity  of  the 
whole  creation  ;  at  least,  not  until  his  observation  should  be 
extended  to  all  the  facts  of  the  universe,  metaphysical  as 
well  as  physical,  and  be  made  to  comprehend  intellectual 
as  well  as  sensible  truth,  ascending  by  the  scaling  ladder  of 
the  intellect  into  the  very  loftiest  parts  of  nature,  and  dil- 
igently and  perseveringly  pursuing  the  thread  of  the  laby- 
rinth. To  the  man  of  mere  physical  science  the  universe 
will  always  be  the  particular  mass  of  facts,  which  have 
been  observed  by  the  senses  and  experiment,  together 
with  some  sort  of  hazy  and  superstitious  theology,  or  what 
is  worse,  some  kind  of  materialistic  atheism  ;  and  for  such 
a  man,  the  idea  of  a  pulling  power,  or  a  self-driving  power, 
in  each  heavenly  body,  and  in  every  particle  of  matter,  will 
explain  the  observed  phenomena  well  enough  for  all  his 
purposes,  and  perhaps  sufficiently  answer  the  received 
mathematical  formulas.  The  real  mathematician,  however, 
has,  in  all  ages,  come  nearest  to  being  a  philosopher ;  for 
his  field  lies  in  the  world  of  pure  reason,  —  mathematics 
being,  at  bottom,  a  science  of  the  laws  of  thought  and  of 
the  dynamics  of  thinking  power.  The  mere  physicist,  like 
Democritus,  is  apt  to  stop  short  with  atoms ;  as  if  atoms 
were  some  self-existent  living  monads,  in  a  state  of  univer- 
sal disintegration,  and  endowed  each  with  a  sort  of  long 
feeler  and  claw,  wherewith  to  reach  forth  into  immensity 
and  seize  upon  whatever  came  within  its  reach,  in  order  to 
drag  it  to  itself;  or  as  if  each  particle  of  matter  were  an 
independent  self-acting  cause,  capable  of  driving  itself  to- 
ward any  other  particle,  of  its  own  mere  motion  :  —  -  nay," 
says  Bacon,  "  even  that  school  which  is  most  accused  of 
atheism  doth  most  demonstrate  religion ;  that  is,  the  school 
of  Leucippus,  and  Democritus,  and  Epicurus :  for  it  is  a 
thousand  times  more  credible  that  four  mutable  elements, 
and  one  immutable  fifth  essence,  duly  and  eternally  placed, 
need  no  God,  than  that  an  army  of  infinite  small  portions, 
or  seeds,  unplaced,  should  have  produced  this  order  and 


426  SCIENCE  OF  SOUL. 

beauty  without  a  divine  marshal."  And  when  the  true  phi- 
losopher has  once  found  these  atoms  to  be  merely  secondary 
forms  of  substance,  deriving  their  own  existence  as  such 
as  well  as  all  the  powers  that  are  active  within  them  from 
the  primary  and  total  substance  of  all  substances  and 
power  of  all  powers,  lying  underneath,  behind,  and  within, 
all  forms  of  substance  of  whatever  kind,  then  is  it  seen, 
that  all  power  must  proceed,  and  go  forth,  from  one  centre 
of  unity,  as  a  pushing,  driving,  developing,  sustaining,  up- 
holding, and  creating  power ;  and  so,  that  power  is  not 
primarily  exerted  from  as  many  original  and  distinct 
centres  as  there  are  bodies,  or  atoms,  in  nature,  as  so  many 
drawing,  or  as  so  many  driving,  ultimate  forces ;  as  if  all 
being  began  and  ended  with  atoms  !  —  "  Ac  si  quicquam  in 
Universo  esse  possit  instar  insula,  quod  a  rerum  nexu  separe- 
tur  "J1  —  or,  as  if  some  imaginary  being,  outside  the  uni- 
verse, had,  in  some  inconceivable  way,  created  the  atoms 
out  of  nothing,  endowed  each  with  a  special  power  of  its 
own,  and  then  left  them  to  push,  or  pull,  for  themselves  ! 
Berkeley  exposed  the  absurdity  of  this  sort  of  science  long 
ago  :  —  "  Patet  igitur  gravitatem  aut  vim  frustra  poni  pro 
principio  motus." 2     So  says  the  Phaedrus  of  Plato  :  "  The 

beginning  of  motion  is  that  which  moves  itself; 

and  this  is  the  very  essence  and  true  notion  of  soul " ; 
or,  as  St.  Austin  (according  to  Burton  3)  expounded  out 
of  Plato,  "  a  spiritual  substance  moving  itself." 

§  6.    SCIENCE    OF   SOUL. 

The  motions  of  the  planets  and  of  the  sidereal  spheres, 
as  far  into  the  depths  of  immensity  as  the  remotest  visible 
nebula,  and  down  to  the  slightest  irregularity  of  motion,  so 
far  as  yet  observed  and  studied,  are  found  to  be  reducible 
to  a  geometric  science  of  the  dynamics  of  power  and  the 

i  De  Aug.  Scient.,  L.  II.  c.  13. 

2  De  Motu,  Works  (Dublin,  1784),  II.  125. 

*  Anat.  of  Mel.  (Boston,  1862),  I.  219. 


SCIENCE  OF  SOUL.  427 

statics  of  equilibrium,  in  exact  accordance  with  mathemati- 
cal laws.  The  phenomena  of  electricity,  magnetism,  light, 
heat,  sound,  chemistry,  and  indeed  all  physics,  art,  design, 
and  beauty,  admit  of  numerical  expression  and  a  mathe- 
matical nomenclature,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  and  for- 
mulas of  mathematical  science  ;  for  mathematics  is  nothing 
else  but  a  science  of  the  laws  of  thought,  divine  or  human, 
so  far  as  these  laws  have  ever  fallen  within  the  special  do- 
main of  any  mathematician.  Nothing  is  more  moral  than 
science ;  and  all  science  is  mathematical.  All  possible 
creation  must  be,  and  is,  mathematical :  even  miracles  are 
mathematical.  That  all  bodies  should  be  gravitated, 
weighed,  or  impelled,  toward  each  other,  directly  as  the 
mass  and  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  distance,  is  evi- 
dently necessary  to  the  stability  of  the  universe,  in  order 
that  there  may  be  a  Cosmos,  instead  of  a  Chaos,  or  rather 
a  total  oblivion  and  nonentity  of  all  things,  if  that  were 
conceivably  possible  ;  for,  as  in  the  play,  — 

"  The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre, 
Observe  degree,  priority,  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form, 
Office,  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order  "  ; 

[Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3.] 

as  Bacon  says  of  true  justice  in  the  law,  that  it  is  "  suum 

cuique  tribuere,  the   law   guiding   all   things  with  line   of 

measure,  and  proportion  " :  — 

" Mar.    Suum  cuique  is  our  Roman  justice: 
This  prince  in  justice  seizeth  but  his  own." 

Tit.  And.,  Act  1.  Sc.  2. 

Apply  any  other  law,  and  the  planets  would 

"  In  evil  mixture,  to  disorder  wander."  —  Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 
Chaos  is  a  negative  term,  expressive  of  the  absence  of 
that  order  which  is  necessary  to  produce  a  cosmos  ;  that  is, 
a  partial  absence  of  form  and  order,  not  a  total  negation  of 
all  form  and  substance,  in  the  whole,  or  in  any  particular 
thing ;  for  that  would  be  oblivion  or  annihilation  of  that 


428  SCIENCE  OF  SOUL. 

whole,  or  of  that  particular.  The  popular  idea  of  matter 
as  a  sort  of  dead  substratum,  possessing  of  itself  certain 
inherent  and  essential  qualities,  properties,  and  laws  of  its 
own,  and,  as  such,  being  self-subsistent  from  eternity,  as 
a  something  distinct  from  the  thinking  essence  of  God, 
though  co-eternal  with  Him,  or  as  subsisting  without  God, 
and  thereby  moulding  itself  into  a  universe,  as  if  it  were 
unnecessary  to  have  any  other  Creator  at  all,  is  a  mere 
illusion  of  unscientific  knowledge  and  uncritical  thinking. 
Take  a  solid  block  of  ice,  for  instance,  and  (what  is  equally 
true  in  general  of  a  block  of  basalt,  granite,  porphyry,  or 
any  other  solid  in  nature,  though  every  solid  may  not  ad- 
mit of  all  the  stages  of  form),  apply  heat,  and  it  becomes 
liquid  water,  without  any  change  in  the  quantity  of  matter ; 
wherein  we  see  that  solidity  is  not  an  essential  quality  of 
matter,  but  an  accidental  quality,  that  is,  merely  a  certain 
temporary  state  of  equilibrium  of  stationary  balance  in  the 
atoms  of  the  mass,  at  a  given  temperature.  Raising  the 
temperature,  that  equilibrium  is  overcome,  by  the  applied 
force  of  heat,  and  the  solid  takes  on  the  liquid  form.  Ap- 
ply a  greater  degree  of  heat,  and  the  liquid  water  be- 
comes an  invisible  gaseous  vapor:  wherein  we  see  again 
that  liquidity  is  not  an  essential,  but  an  accidental,  quality 
of  matter,  being  only  another  state  of  temporary  equilib- 
rium of  stationary  balance  in  the  atoms  of  the  mass,  though 
having  a  less  degree  of  fixity  and  permanence  of  form  than 
the  solid  ice,  and  an  equilibrium,  as  a  whole,  which  is  dis- 
turbed on  application  of  the  slightest  degree  of  external 
force.  Apply  a  higher  degree  of  heat  to  this  invisible 
vapor,  and  it  is  resolved  into  two  distinct  gases,  without  any 
change  again  in  the  quantity  of  matter.  There  is  a  great 
variety  of  these  gases,  or  gaseous  forms  of  substance,  nat- 
ural or  artificial,  each  having  its  own  peculiar  properties 
and  qualities  as  such,  which  are  doubtless  neither  less 
accidental,  nor  more  essential  than  solidity,  liquidity,  gas- 
eousness ;  but  are  merely  so  many  other  forms  of  tempo- 


SCIENCE  OF  SOUL.  429 

rary  equilibrium  of  stationary  balance  in  the  given  quantity 
of  matter,  in  the  whole  and  in  the  parts ;  until,  at  last,  we 
arrive  at  the  stage  in  the  forms  of  substance,  in  which  it 
presents  itself  to  our  senses  and  to  all  our  instruments  of 
observation  no  otherwise  than  as  invisible  force,  or  power 
in  activity,  under  laws  which  are  reducible  to  a  mathemati- 
cal science  of  the  dynamics  of  force,  laws  of  motion,  and  sta- 
tics of  equilibrium  ;  at  which  point  all  our  common  notions 
of  dead  substratum  have  absolutely  vanished,  and  science 
is  compelled  to  drop  the  expression  "  indestructibility  of 
matter"  and  to  substitute  in  its  place  that  of  " the  conserva- 
tion of  force  ;  "  mathematics,  again,  in  reference  to  all  exter- 
nal nature,  being,  at  bottom,  a  science  of  the  laws  and 
power  of  Thought,  and  a  metaphysics  of  creation,  remem- 
brance, and  oblivion,  in  the  Divine  Mind.  And  so,  ac- 
cording to  science,  as  Plato  said,1  matter  in  itself  is  without 
Figure,  without  Quality,  and  without  Species ;  it  is  neither 
a  body  nor  without  body,  but  is  the  total  substance,  where- 
in is  the  possibility  of  substances  or  bodies ;  and  solids, 
liquids,  gases,  particular  minerals,  plants,  and  animals  (in 
respect  of  their  bodies),  are  but  temporary  and  transient 
forms  of  "  stored  force,"  more  or  less  fixed  and  permanent 
Let  new  conditions  happen,  and  other  forces,  or  new  chem- 
ical reactions,  overcome  that  fixity,  or  let  the  vital  or  sus- 
taining power  be  withdrawn,  and  this  stored  force  is  with- 
drawn, or  is  set  free,  and  passes  into  other  forms  of  sub- 
stance, reaching  therein  again,  perhaps,  a  temporary  equi- 
librium of  stationary  balance  ;  but  the  mineral,  plant,  or 
animal,  that  was,  thereby  vanishes  into  oblivion,  and  ceases 
to  be  as  such.  So  force  ascends,  or  rather  descends, 
through  all  the  stages  of  form  and  equilibrium,  from  think- 
ing power  to  atom,  nebula,  solar  system,  globe,  stratum, 
mineral,  spore,  cell ;  and  from  spore  to  tree  and  fruit,  and 
from  germ-cell  to  full-grown  animal ;  and  thence  back 
again  from  animal  to  plant,  to  mineral,  to  nebula,  to  atom, 
l   Works  of  Plato  (Bohn),  VI.  260. 


430  SCIENCE  OF  SOUL. 

to  thinking  power,  in  the  eternal  cycle  of  creation  ;  for,  as 
in  the  play  :  — 

"  Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  at  his  back, 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion." 

Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

This  hypothetical  chaos  of  matter  without  form  and  order, 
presenting  nothing  but  a  certain  amount  of  dead  substratum 
and  mathematical  physics,  is  that  same  fantastical  super- 
stition which  Bacon  attributed  to  the  ancients,  and  that 
same  "  stupid  thoughtless  somewhat "  and  "  unthinking  sub- 
stratum," which  Berkeley,  that  "  altogether  fine  and  rare 
man,"  as  Herder  called  him,  than  whom  a  greater  philos- 
opher has  not  lived  in  England,  perhaps,  since  Bacon  down 
to  our  time,  endeavored  to  exorcise  as  a  visionary  phantasm 
(and  it  ought  to  have  been  effectually  and  forever)  out  of 
all  philosophy.  Like  Bacon  himself,  Berkeley  was  not  so 
much  a  visionary  idealist  as  a  Platonic  realist.  This  same 
fantastic  superstition  still  beclouds  the  imaginations  of  men 
of  science  as  well  as  theologians.  Nor  will  any  system  of 
dynamics  and  statics  ever  account  for  a  universe  which  is 
a  cosmos,  until  it  shall  rise  to  a  comprehension  of  the 
dynamics  of  the  Divine  Power  of  Thought  thinking  a 
cosmos,  and  those  statics  of  equilibrium,  which  amount  to 
the  Divine  Remembrance,  wherein  is  the  stability  of  the 
universe  so  far  as  stable,  and  its  permanence  in  so  far  as 
it  is  permanent.  But  over  and  above  the  mathematical 
dynamics  and  statics  of  mere  physicists  and  "positive " 
science,  there  is  seen  by  all  that  look,  having  eyes  to  see, 
that  order,  plan,  purpose,  artistic  design,  and  divine  beauty 
in  the  creation,  which  are  nowhere  in  nature,  nor  anywhere 
else  but  in  the  absurd  fantasies  of  men,  the  work  of  any- 
thing but  artistically  creative  thought. 

Humboldt,  setting  forth  the  Aspects  of  Nature  with 
scientific  reference  to  physical  laws  and  forces,  and  noting 
everywhere  a  certain  conformity  of  the  vegetable  and 
animal   kingdoms   to  existing  physical  conditions,  dwells 


SCIENCE  OF  SOUL.  431 

with  the  admiration  of  the  poet  upon  the  singular  beauty 
of  the  palm,  towering  far  above  the  surrounding  forest,  m 
the  valley  of  the  Amazon  ;  and  he  enters  into  an  elaborate 
consideration  of  the  physical  forces  acting  from  within  the 
plant,  outwardly,  against  the  opposing  external  forces,  under 
natural  laws  and  physical  conditions,  and  in  accordance 
with  mathematics,  in  the  exact  balance  of  which,  the  tree 
at  length  stands  forth  a  Palm.  But  there  is  observable 
here,  also,  what  is  apparent  in  that  balance  of  forces,  this 
striking .  fact,  that  the  tree  with  its  foliage,  flowers,  and 
fruit,  (which  might  have  taken  many  other  and  perhaps 
ugly  shapes,  under  these  same  conditions,  and  in  an  exact 
balance  of  forces,  too.)  in  fact,  comes  forth  in  just  that, 
outline  which  makes  it  an  object  of  exquisite  beauty,  ex- 
hibiting an  artistic  form  and  a  design  so  admirable  that  the 
most  skilful  human  artist  is  unable  to  surpass  it,  in  his 
conception,  or  on  the  canvas.  And  at  the  same  time,  under 
the  same  general  laws  and  conditions,  and  in  varying  par- 
ticular conditions,  come  forth,  also,  all  the  artistic  variety 
and  beauty  of  an  Amazonian  forest ;  as  if  not  a  mere 
mathematician,  much  less  a  blind,  accidental  balance  of 
forces,  but  a  mathematical  artist,  had  done  it ;  for  it  is 
essentially,  from  the  first  germ-cell  to  the  full-grown  tree, 
Artist-Mind  work. 

If  an  artist  will  sculpture  an  Apollo,  he  first  conceives 
the  idea,  or  image,  of  an  Apollo  in  his  mind.  If  another 
man  were  endowed  with  a  faculty  of  vision  to  see  into  his 
mind,  as  he  actually  sees  into  the  mind  of  the  Creator,  he 
would  behold  the  Apollo  standing  therein  as  a  fact  as  in- 
dubitable as  the  palm  on  the  banks  of  the  Amazon.  The 
artist  can  hold  the  imaged  conception  there  as  long  as  he 
can  keep  his  mind  fixed  on  thinking  the  object ;  that  is,  as 
long  as  he  can  actually  remember  it.  If  he  change  his 
thought,  and  let  the  conception  vanish,  he  may  by  recol- 
lection re-create  it,  or  he  may  create  another  in  its  place  ; 
or,  if  he  please,  he  may,  with  his  chisel,  transfer  and  fix  his 


432  SCIENCE  OF  SOUL. 

creation  upon  a  block  of  marble.  The  absolute  Artist-Mind 
needs  no  marble,  nor  other  substance,  on  which  to  stamp 
and  maintain  his  creations,  than  the  divine  Remembrance 
and  that  same  stuff,  of  which  the  human  artist's  Apollo  was 
made,  when  it  stood  forth,  like  a  dream,  in  his  conception 
only,  —  the  power  of  thought  in  action,  which  is  substance 
giving  form  to  itself,  and  material  enough  for  the  works  of 
the  Creator. 

There  is  a  difference  between  Remembrance  and  Memory, 
as  there  is,  also,  between  Memory  and  Recollection.  All 
created  things,  that  is,  all  ideas  or  conceptions,  must  be 
coordinated  in  Time  and  Space.  Coordination  in  reference 
to  space  is  in  one  space,  or  in  a  series  of  spaces,  out  of  all 
possibility  of  space.  Coordination  in  reference  to  time  is 
in  one  time,  or  in  a  serial  succession  of  times,  out  of  all 
possibility  of  time.  There  may  be  a  space,  or  a  series  of 
spaces,  in  one  time  ;  and  a  time,  or  a  succession  of  times, 
in  one  space.  By  no  possibility  can  there  be  a  serial  suc- 
cession of  spaces  in  one  and  the  same  space  and  time,  nor 
a  succession  of  times  in  one  and  the  same  time  and  space  ; 
in  either  case,  there  would  continue  to  be  exact  identity, 
with  no  possibility  of  change  or  difference.  As  touching 
the  divisibility  of  any  conceivable  space,  or  time,  however 
small,  the  possibility  of  such  supposed  divisibility  would 
cease  precisely  at  the  point  where  the  given  space  and 
time  (for  there  can  be  no  space  without  a  time,  nor  any 
time  without  a  space,)  should  begin  to  be  bounded  out  of 
immensity  and  eternity,  the  possibilities  of  space  and  time  ; 
that  is  to  say,  at  the  point  of  no  space  and  time,  or  non- 
existence of  the  conception,  which  is  exactly  the  point  of 
commencement  of  the  activity  of  the  power  of  thought  in 
giving  existence  to  the  conception  as  a  creation  in  time  and 
space,  in  the  work  of  thought  in  the  creation  of  a  particular 
thing,  or  of  a  variety  of  things  coordinated  in  the  unity  of 
the  creating  power.  But  a  succession  which  was  in  many 
successive  times,  and  in  one  and  the  same  space,  or  series 


SCIENCE  OF  SOUL.  433 

of  spaces,  or  in  a  changing  series  of  spaces,  may  be  trans- 
ferred, —  shifted  round,  as  it  were,  —  in  the  mind  into  a 
serial  successive  order  of  as  many  spaces,  or  series  of  spaces, 
in  this  one  time,  now,  as  there  were  times  and  their  spaces 
in  any  past  time,  or  in  the  whole  succession  of  times ;  and 
this  is  Memory.  All  the  facts  and  events,  perceptions  and 
conceptions  —  the  whole  thought  —  of  a  man's  life,  have 
had  existence  in  space,  either  in  his  mind  alone,  or  in 
external  nature  and  his  mind,  and  succession  in  time  in  his 
consciousness.  If  he  bring  them  up  in  his  mind  in  one 
view,  at  this  one  time,  now,  the  series  will  stand  in  his 
conception  as  a  serial  order  of  as  many  spaces  as  there  were 
times  of  the  facts  and  events,  perceptions  and  conceptions, 
and  their  spaces,  in  the  succession  of  time  in  the  course  of 
his  life ;  and  his  mental  vision  will  see  the  whole  in  one 
view.  Remembrance  proper  is  the  power  to  do  this  effec- 
tually and  continuously ;  a  power,  which  no  finite  mind 
fully  possesses.  In  the  work  of  memory,  we  conceive  or 
create  a  space,  or  series  and  successions  of  spaces,  in  the 
mind,  in  the  present  time,  corresponding  to  those  which 
were  in  nature  and  fact,  or  in  our  previous  thought,  in  a 
past  time,  or  times  in  succession,  and  contemplate  them 
anew  ;  for  Time  and  Space  are  but  laws  of  thought  giving 
the  forms  and  outlines  of  conceived,  created,  and  remem- 
bered conceptions  or  things.  If  a  space,  or  series  of  spaces, 
which  was  in  any  past  time,  as  a  house  seen  twenty  years 
ago,  be  merely  thus  re-called,  re-created,  and  re-produced 
in  the  mind,  in  this  present  time,  the  space  or  series  of 
spaces,  giving  or  constituting  the  form  of  the  house,  which 
existed  then  as  a  part  of  the  phenomena  of  the  existent 
universe  external  to  himself,  (or  if,  of  his  own  thought  and 
in  his  own  mind  only,  as  his  former  ideas,)  will  now  stand 
in  his  conception  as  so  many  corresponding  ideal  spaces  in 
his  present  view  ;  and  this  is  simple  Recollection. 

Now,  if,  in  either  case,  the  mental  view  be  directed  upon 
the  whole  series  at  once,  the  mind  sees  and  remembers  the 

28 


434  SCIENCE  OF  SOUL. 

whole  as  such  ;  and  if  the  attention,  that  is,  the  finite  and 
particular  power  of  thought,  which  constitutes  the  soul,  be 
directed  upon  any  particular  portion  of  the  series,  out  of 
the  whole  field  of  the  finite  thought  and  knowledge,  he 
remembers,  or  recollects,  that  portion  only ;  the  rest  stands 
not  re-created,  not  seen,  and  therefore,  forgotten,  and,  for 
the  time  being,  as  if  it  never  had  been.  The  want  of  power 
to  bring  up  the  whole  array,  or  any  particular  portion  of  it, 
is  a  want  of  memory  of  that  whole,  or  that  portion,  which 
has  thereby  passed  into  irretrievable  oblivion.  And  herein 
lies  the  strength,  or  weakness,  of  the  memory  :  it  depends 
upon  the  habit  and  continuous  intensity  of  the  power  of 
thought  itself,  first,  in  observing,  that  is,  perceiving  and 
conceiving  accurately  and  distinctly  the  things  to  be  remem- 
bered ;  secondly,  on  frequent  re-creation,  re-production,  and 
contemplation  of  them,  with  the  aid  of  association  and  all 
other  aids ;  and,  thirdly,  on  the  given  power  of  thought 
itself,  wherein,  at  last,  is  the  faculty  of  re-creation  of  con- 
ceptions, and  recognition  of  their  correspondence  and  iden- 
tity with  what  has  been  in  the  mind  before,  and  perhaps 
never  lost  entirely  out  of  remembrance.  In  total  oblivion, 
all  is  absolute  nonentity  and  as  if  it  had  never  been  ;  being 
vanished  into  "  airy  nothing."  If  this  faculty  of  memory 
were  as  powerful  in  man  as  in  God,  human  memory  would 
rise  to  the  absolute  power  and  continuity  of  the  Divine 
Remembrance,  and  all  things  which  he  should  desire  and 
determine  to  remember  and  keep  in  existence  in  his  thought 
and  contemplation,  out  of  all  the  facts  and  events,  percep- 
tions and  conceptions,  —  the  thought  and  knowledge  of  his 
life,  —  would  be  ever  present  and  clear  to  his  conscious- 
ness.    Omniscience  belongs  only  to  the  Creator. 

The  mastodon  has  ceased  to  exist :  his  bones  only  re- 
main. They,  only,  continue  to  be  remembered,  and  so  held 
and  carried  forward  in  the  divine  remembrance,  in  a  certain 
changing  permanency,  as  fit  material  for  the  construction 
of  a  rind  of  globe,  while  at  the  same  time  furnishing  a  suffi- 


SCIENCE  OF  SOUL.  435 

cient  record  for  our  reading.  The  animal  that  was  is  other- 
wise vanished  utterly  into  oblivion.  We  may  gather  up  the 
remembered  relics  of  him,  together  with  the  remaining 
traces  of  his  time  and  country,  and,  out  of  these  materials 
and  such  analogies  as  can  be  drawn  from  whatever  else  we 
know,  re-create  him  in  our  own  minds  as  nearly  as  we  can, 
as  a  Cuvier  approximately  re-constructs  and  restores  an 
extinct  fauna  of  a  buried  age.  The  difference  between  the 
pictured  human  creation  as  restoration  and  the  living  reality 
of  past  time,  being  a  sort  of  imperfect  reminiscence,  may 
help  us  to  realize  how  vast,  and  of  what  nature,  is  the 
difference  between  the  human  and  the  divine  creator. 

Again,  let  superficial  science  take  the  animal  kingdom 
now  existent  on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  and  arrange  the 
whole  on  a  horizontal  base-line,  in  a  linear  branching  series, 
according  to  the  order  of  ascent  and  succession  in  the  scale 
of  being  of  the  ideal  types,  in  a  true  and  complete  zoological 
classification  (and  it  will  be  all  the  same,  whether  embry- 
ology, with  Agassiz,  or  the  nervous  system,  with  Owen,  be 
taken  as  basis),  from  the  lowest  cell-animalcule  up  to  man, 
placing  the  animal  cell  toward  the  horizon  ;  and  then  let 
deep  science  turn  the  distal  end  of  the  series  downward 
to  a  right  angle  in  the  direction  of  a  radius  to  the  Earth's 
centre  ;  suppose  it  to  reach  through  a  complete  series  of 
all  the  geological  formations  that  have  anywhere  been  laid 
down,  so  as  to  represent  a  continuous  zoological  province, 
even  from  that  lowest  fossiliferous  stratum  in  which  the 
first  animal  cell  came  into  existence  (and  you  may  be  sure 
there  is  such  a  stratum,  though  no  geological  observer  has 
ever  yet  found  in  it  any  fossil  remains  of  such  primitive 
animalcules)  ;  and  you  will  find,  on  comparison,  that  there 
is  a  very  exact  correspondence,  if  not  absolute  identity,  in 
the  order  of  succession,  or  setting  in,  of  the  more  general 
ideal  types  (as  of  Branch,  Class,  Order,)  between  the  super- 
ficial series  of  zoological  classification  and  the  fossil  branch- 
ing series  of  actual   nature  in  geological  time ;  that  is, 


436  SCIENCE  OF  SOUL. 

between  the  series  of  this  one  time  now,  and  its  serial  suc- 
cession of  spaces,  and  that  of  the  serial  succession  of  times 
past,  and  their  accompanying  spaces  on  the  successively 
existent  surfaces  of  the  globe.  So  we  have  in  space  here, 
now,  what  was  in  time  there,  then ;  and  this,  for  us,  is 
a  kind  of  reminiscence  after  the  manner  of  Plato  and 
Bacon. 

You  will  observe,  also,  a  general  correspondence,  or 
resemblance,  in  the  more  general  types  themselves,  but 
with  differences  increasing  in  amount,  more  and  more,  in 
the  direction  of  the  lesser  and  subordinate  types  (as  of 
genera  and  species),  distributed  throughout  the  whole 
branching  series,  and  running  out  into  final  extinction  in 
the  lesser  types  of  genera,  species,  and  individuals.  The 
identity  or  resemblance  may  be  said  to  measure  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  divine  remembrance,  in  respect  of  these  ideal 
types.  The  differences  exhibit  the  amount  of  change  in  the 
divine  mind,  or  oblivion  of  old  and  creation  of  new,  in  that 
vast  series  of  times  and  in  that  almost  infinite  series  of 
terrestrial  spaces  successively  existing  in  these  times ;  in 
which,  a  few  of  the  more  general  types,  many  of  the  lesser, 
and  nearly  all  genera  and  species  down  to  the  later  periods, 
have,  from  time  to  time,  vanished  into  oblivion,  while  many 
new  types,  especially  the  lesser,  have  come  into  existence. 
Indeed,  only  one,  the  most  general  type  of  all,  the  cell, 
wherein  is  the  unity  and  starting-point  of  the  whole,  spans 
the  entire  series  in  absolute  continuity;  for,  in  that,  the 
divine  remembrance  has  been  continuous  from  the  very 
beginning.  And  it  matters  not,  that  the  work  of  creating 
new  cells,  or  that  new  (sometimes  called  "  spontaneous  ") 
generation  of  new  individuals  of  the  lowest  forms  of  animal 
life,  has  continued  to  run  along  down  the  base  of  the  pyramid 
of  the  animal  kingdom  from  the  beginning  of  animal  life 
to  the  present  day ;  for  the  ideal  type  in  them,  for  the  most 
part,  continues  the  same,  and  the  innermost  laboratory  of 
God  and  Nature  is  never  closed.     And  so  have  continued 


SCIENCE  OF  SOUL.  437 

the  types  of  branches  since  they  once  began,  or  of  classes, 
or  orders,  or,  it  may  be,  of  some  genera,  and  even  of  some 
species,  in  a  continuous  and  unbroken  line  of  linear  descent. 
An  exact  and  complete  natural  history,  that  should  be,  like 
that  contemplated  by  Bacon,  "  a  high  kind  of  natural 
magic," 1  would  exhibit  to  our  view  the  actual  course  of  the 
divine  thought  in  the  creation  of  an  animal  kingdom  :  and 
this,  again,  would  be  a  kind  of  reminiscence  in  us. 

In  like  manner,  let  superficial  science  take  the  existing 
human  races,  down  to  the  anthropoid  apes,  and  arrange 
them  in  one  linear  branching  series,  somewhat  as  in  a  lineal 
tree  of  family  descent,  according  to  ideal  type  and  rank  in 
the  scale  of  being,  as  if  you  should  place  in  line  a  large 
family  of  children  in  the  order  of  their  ages,  from  the  man 
of  twenty-one  down  to  the  child  creeping  on  all  fours ;  and 
the  deep  science  of  actual  nature  will  show  that  the  series 
truly  represents  in  general  the  order  of  succession  and  dis- 
tribution in  which  the  several  races  or  types  of  men  have 
come  into  existence  on  the  earth  ;  for,  the  races,  like  the 
children  of  a  family,  and  indeed  the  whole  animal  king- 
dom, may  be  said,  at  last,  to  be  strung  on  the  great  um- 
bilical cord  or  branching  ideal  thread  of  embrvological 
evolution  ;  along  which  takes  place  the  gradual  transition 
of  type,  or  what  Bacon  calls  "  a  transmutation  of  species."  "2 
The  Apes  begin  to  appear  in  the  Eocene ;  Man  has  been 
found  near  the  beginning  of  the  Pleistocene,  and  doubtless 
existed  in  the  Pliocene,  and  may  possibly  yet  be  found  as 
far  back  as  the  Miocene.  Actually  observed  facts  are  not 
yet  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  assign  the  exact  order  of  the 
fossil  succession  in  actual  nature,  but  enough  is  known, 
already,  to  warrant  the  conclusion,  on  the  whole,  which  is 
also  borne  out  by  the  analogies  of  all  the  rest  of  the  fossil 
zoology  and  the  known  principles  of  living  zoology,  that  the 
race  which  is  lowest  in  the  scale  of  creation,  on  the  present 
surface  of  the  earth,  is  likewise  the  oldest  in  geological 
1  Nat.  Hist.  §  93.  2  Nat.  Hist.  §  525. 


438  ALL  SCIENCE. 

time.  The  older  and  inferior  races  run  out  into  extinction 
and  disappear,  as  the  newer  and  superior  come  forward :  in 
the  order  of  divine  providence,  the  old  passes  into  oblivion 
as  the  new  appears. 

Says  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  "  I  take  care  not  to  lend  to 
God  any  intention  :  I  pretend  only  to  the  character  of  the 
historian  of  what  is."  It  is  not  probable  that  the  Creator 
has  occasion  to  borrow  intentions  from  any  mortal.  It  may 
be,  that  in  searching  for  "  final  causes  "  men  have  looked, 
as  it  were,  through  the  wrong  end  of  the  telescope :  through 
the  direct  scope  of  intellectual  vision  (Sapience),  the  pri- 
mal efficient  and  essential  cause  is  seen  to  be  intelligent, 
divine,  and  enough.  What  we  have  to  do,  is,  undoubtedly, 
to  observe  the  fact,  and  to  open  our  eyes  that  we  may  see  ; 
for,  as  Bacon  says,  "  the  Wisdom  of  God  shines  forth  the 
more  wonderfully,  when  Nature  does  one  thing,  and  Prov- 
idence elicits  another,  as  if  the  character  of  Providence 
were  stamped  upon  all  forms  and  natural  motions." 1 

§  7.   ALL    SCIENCE. 

Physical  science  cannot  help  being  also  metaphysical 
science.  Most  scientific  methods  and  men  seem  to  ignore 
metaphysics  altogether ;  and  but  few  scientific  societies 
admit  a  department  of  metaphysics  into  their  constitu- 
tion ;  —  as  if  metaphysics  and  moonshine  were  synonymous 
terms.  But  in  all  ages  as  now  the  greatest  men  of  science 
have  been  also  metaphysicians,  who  have  recognized  the 
truth,  more  or  less  clearly,  that  all  physical  inquiry  leads 
directly  into  that  realm  of  universals  and  pure  metaphysics, 
wherein  the  universe  has  to  be  contemplated  as  the  actual 
thought  of  a  Divine  Thinker.  Says  one  of  these  (not 
among  the  least  distinguished  of  our  time)  :  "  The  true 
thought  of  the  created  mind  must  have  had  its  origin  from 
the  Creator ;  but  with  him,  thought  is  reality ; " 2  and  again, 

1  De  Aug.  Scient.,  L.  III.  c.  4. 

2  Address  of  Prof.  Peirce,  1854. 


ALL  SCIENCE.  439 

"  It  seemed  to  him  the  only  way  for  us  to  understand  the 
organization  of  the  universe  was  that  by  which  we  must  un- 
derstand any  human  work.  We  would  not  understand  a  play 
of  Shakespeare,  until  we  tried  to  construct  it  over  again  for 
ourselves.  Then  and  then  only  could  we  understand  how 
all  the  parts  of  the  play  belonged  together.  So  with  regard 
to  the  work  of  the  Deity  ;  it  was  not  possible  for  us  to 
understand  this  as  an  organization,  until  we  looked  at  it 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Creator." 1  Another  distin- 
guished light  of  science  discourses  concerning  animals, 
thus  :  "  The  very  nature  of  these  beings  and  their  relations 
to  one  another  and  to  the  world  in  which  they  live  exhibit 
thought,  and  can  therefore  be  referred  only  to  the  imme- 
diate action  of  a  thinking  being,  even  though  the  manner 
in  which  they  were  called  into  existence  remains  for 
the  present  a  mystery ; "  and  again,  "  This  growing  coin- 
cidence between  our  systems  and  that  of  nature  shows 
further  the  identity  of  the  operations  of  the  human  mind 
and  the  Divine  Intellect." 2  Again,  speaking  of  the  entire 
animal  kingdom,  "  When  we  came  to  the  conviction  that  this 
whole  was  the  combination  of  these  facts  in  a  logical  man- 
ner, and  as  whatever  intelligence  we  had  was  derived  from 
Him  and  in  His  image,  that  coincidence  made  it  possible 
for  us  to  understand  his  objects." 8 

That  coincidence  must  be  considered,  of  course,  as  ex- 
tending to  all  the  fundamental  and  eternal  laws  of  artisti- 
cally creative  thought.  These  laws  and  modes  of  action 
being  the  same  for  all  thought,  and  soul  or  thinking  power 
being  everywhere  essentially  identical  in  nature,  created 
objects  in  nature  are  transferred  to  our  minds  as  copied 
conceptions,  as  it  were  ;  and  the  copy  is  formed  in  the  mind, 
on  the  data  given  in  sensation,  by  a  power  of  the  same 
nature,  acting  under  the  same  laws  and  in  the  same  modes 

1  Prof.  Peirce  on  Analytic  Morphology,  Ann.  Sci.  Disc.  1856. 

2  Agassiz;  Conlrib.  to  Nat.  Hist,  of  N.  Amer.,  I.  13-23. 
8  Agassiz  {Ann.  Sci.  Disc.  1856). 


440  ALL  SCIENCE. 

as  that  by  which  the  original  is  itself  conceived  and  created, 
differing  only  in  degree  of  power  and  in  extent  and  scope 
of  conscious  intellectual  vision,  as  the  finite  and  special 
must  differ  from  the  infinite  and  absolute  ;  and  the  copied 
conception  will  be  as  accurate,  true,  and  complete  as  the 
observation  is  thorough,  particular,  and  exact,  and  the  sense- 
perception  distinct,  and  no  more  so.  And  these  concep- 
tions will  be  as  lasting  and  permanent  as  the  power  of 
memory  is  intense  and  the  will  strong.  Hamlet  must  have 
understood  the  matter  much  in  the  same  way,  when  he 
said :  — 

"  Remember  thee  ? 
Yea,  from  the  table  of  my  memory 
I  '11  wipe  away  all  trivial  fond  records, 
All  saws  of  books,  all  forms,  all  pressures  past, 
That  youth  and  observation  copied  there, 
And  thy  commandment  all  alone  shall  live 
Within  the  book  and  volume  of  my  brain, 
Unmix'd  with  baser  matter."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  5. 

Observation  by  the  senses  and  by  instruments  in  aid  of 
the  senses,  actual  sensible  experience,  necessarily  has  a 
limit ;  but  that  limit  by  no  means  ascertains  and  fixes  the 
bounds  of  all  certain  and  scientific  knowledge.  The  mind, 
by  its  own  original  power  of  thought,  is  able  not  only  to 
grasp  the  laws  and  modes  of  its  own  special  activity,  in  a 
critical  analysis  of  the  mental  phenomena  as  facts,  and  in  a 
sound  psychology,  but  also  to  arrive  at  a  knowledge  therein 
of  the  true  nature  of  cause  or  power,  of  matter  or  sub- 
stance, of  thought  itself,  and  by  that  means  to  transcend 
that  limit  of  sensible  experience,  and  to  advance  beyond 
the  field  of  physical  inquiry  into  the  region  of  purely  met- 
aphysical fact  and  universal  laws,  and  by  the  study  of  these 
further  facts  and  laws  as  a  matter  of  intellectually  observed 
truth,  to  attain  to  a  rational  comprehension  of  the  true 
nature  of  that  uncaused  power  that  creates  the  universe  ; 
and,  at  last,  to  see,  that  the  whole  must,  and  does,  exist  as 
the  actual  thought  of  a  Divine  Thinker,  and  not  otherwise. 


ALL  SCIENCE.  441 

As  Bacon  expresses  it, "  all  learning  is  knowledge  acquired, 
and  all  knowledge  in  God  is  original  " ;  that  is,  with  him, 
thought  and  knowledge  are  one ;  and  so,  that  "  the  truth 
of  being  and  the  truth  of  knowing  is  all  one."1     Plato, 

ilo  Judaeus,  Bbethius,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Bruno,  Spinoza, 
Hooker,  Berkeley,  Swedenborg,  and  many  others  of  the 
olden  times  as  well  as  of  these  later  days,  seem  to  have  con- 
ceived the  matter  much  in  the  same  way.  So  Bacon  must 
have  understood  the  creation  :  in  fact,  this  is  precisely  what 
he  meant,  when  he  said  he  trusted  his  philosophy,  when 
fully  unfolded,  "  would  plainly  constitute  a  Marriage  of  the 
Human  Mind  to  the  Universe,  having  the  Divine  Goodness 
for  bridesmaid." 2  In  no  other  way,  perhaps,  was  it  ever 
possible  for  any  man  to  arrive  at  any  comprehensible  phi- 
losophy of  the  universe.  Without  such  a  philosophy,  the 
observed  facts  of  experimental  science  can  present  nothing 
to  human  intelligence  but  an  incongruous,  heterogeneous, 
and  incomprehensible  mass  of  particulars  —  a  world  of 
facts  tumbled  together  pell-mell ;  and  hence  all  those  ab- 
surd systems,  theological,  or  atheistical,  which  have,  in  all 
times,  beclouded  the  understandings  of  men.  The  English 
Astronomer  Royal  reports  his  magnetical  and  meteorologi- 
cal observations  as  obtained  "with  the  utmost  completeness 
and  exactitude  " ;  but  he  is  absolutely  ■  stopped  from  mak- 
ing further  progress  by  the  total  absence  of  even  empiri- 
cal theory."  His  case  may  be  hopeless ;  but  he  is  certainly 
entitled  to  credit  for  not  undertaking  to  make  headway  in 
that  business  by  the  help  of  any  theory  to  be  derived  from 
Biblical  theology,  the  properties  of  dead  substratum,  Com- 
tean  positivism,  or  any  Queckett-figuring  of  probabilities,  or 
other  sort  of  Babbage-machine  philosophy,  however  useful 
such  machinery  may  be  in  other  matters. 

Even  the  sixty-two  or  more  simple  "  undecomposable 
substances,"  of  which,  thus  far,  the  globe  appears  to  chem- 

1  Praise  of  Krwwl.,  Works  (Mont.),  I.  251. 

2  Delineatio,  Works  (Boston),  VII.  55. 


442  ALL  SCIENCE. 

istry  to  be  constructed,  being  to  the  eye  of  mere  physical 
science  more  or  less  dense  compactions  and  crystallizations 
of  the  supposed  final  elementary  atoms  into  certain  mathe- 
matical forms,  proportions,  and  equivalents,  called  bodies, 
under  the  processes  of  analysis,  are  increasing  in  number 
in  the  chemical  catalogue,  or  sometimes  diminishing,  some 
of  them  being  from  time  to  time  resolved  into  other  ele- 
ments, as  nitrogen  is  reported  to  have  been,  lately ;  thus 
diminishing,  or  increasing,  the  number  of  simples,  until  we 
are  left  in  absolute  uncertainty  whether  the  sum  total  will 
finally  diminish  to  unity,  or  increase  to  infinity ;  and  all 
these  simple  substances,  if  no  further  resolvable  into  kinds, 
are  yet  divisible  into  parts,  as  some  electricians  decompose 
electricity  into  infinitely  little  spheres,  that  spontaneously 
take  on  a  motion  of  rotation  on  an  axis,  and  divide  each 
sphere  into  axis,  poles,  equator,  centre,  circumference, 
tropics,  parallels,  meridians,  hemispheres ; 1  but,  admitting 
the  spheres,  we  have  only  arrived  at  a  more  primary  stage 
of  the  proximate  materials  of  construction,  being  as  yet 
only  secondary  forms  and  modes  of  substance,  even  in  the 
invisible,  imponderable,  indecomposable,  indivisable  ethers. 
And  here  ends,  it  would  seem,  the  entire  scope  of  physical 
science,  for  the  present,  as  to  these  materials.  But  then  we 
have,  further,  light,  heat,  electricity  (according  to  some), 
magnetism,  nervous  force,  gravitation,  and  mechanical 
power,  which  are  neither  ethers,  gases,  nor  clouds  of  ethe- 
real spheres,  at  all,  but,  as  it  seems,  merely  correlated  and 
convertible  forces  —  ¥  exponents  of  different  forms  of 
force," 2  say  the  Academicians,  —  that  is,  we  may  suppose, 
degrees  and  modes  of  power,  which  yet  acts  under  laws 
which  are  found  to  be  mathematical,  and,  for  that  matter, 
identical  with  the  laws  of  power  as  thought ;  and  the  power 
itself  would  seem  to  be  identical  in  nature  with  the  power 
of  thought  as  cause.     And  so,  in  the  last  physical  analysis, 

1  De  La  Rive's  Treatise  on  Electricity,  by  Walker,  London,  1856. 

2  Trans.  Roy.  Soc.,  Lond.  1850,  p.  62. 


ALL   SCIENCE.  443 

and  at  the  last  stage  of  the  forms  and  modes  of  substance,  the 
resolvability,  as  well  as  the  divisibility,  of  matter  is  found 
passing  into  an  actual  totality  of  power,  at  the  point  of  be- 
ginning of  creation,  at  the  very  top  of  Pan's  pyramid,  where 
the  transition  is  so  easy  to  things  divine ;  and  that  power, 
into  which  all  matter  is  thus  resolved,  is  found  to  be  of  the 
nature  wholly  and  absolutely  of  the  power  of  thought  as  the 
primal  thinking  essence  and  cause  of  all  created  things. 
An  actual  experimental  resolution  of  these  simple  elements 
into  this  next  stage  of  degrees  and  modes  of  power,  and 
these,  again,  into  the  still  further  and  last  stage  of  the 
totality  of  all  power,  has  not  as  yet  been  quite  effected,  per- 
haps, by  physical  science  alone ;  though  some  late  experi- 
mentation would  seem  to  amount  almost  to  a  sensible  dem- 
onstration that  the  fact  must  be  so.  The  demonstration 
is  rather  by  the  methods  of  metaphysical  science,  which 
transcends  the  limits  of  sensible  experience,  rises  into  the 
region  of  this  totality  of  all  power,  and  beholds  the  subject 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  one  Eternal  Power  of  Thought ; 
for  man  can  do  this,  being  the  image  of  his  Maker,  and  his 
soul  being  so  framed  as  to  be  "  capable  of  the  image  of  the 
universal  world." 

And  so,  going  out  with  Bacon  through  physics  into  met- 
aphysics, we  arrive,  at  last,  in  the  unity  and  continuity  of 
all  science,  at  Philosophy  itself,  and  at  the  Divine  Soul  of 
the  universe,  in  an  eternal  state  of  living  activity  in  the  per- 
petual distribution  of  variety  in  the  total  unity  of  the  creation, 
in  the  universal  flow  of  the  Providential  order ;  for,  says 
Bacon,  "  the  matter  is  in  a  perpetual  flux,"  or  as  Plato 
says,  again,  "  Soul  is  the  oldest  and  most  divine  of  all 
things,  of  which  a  motion,  by  receiving  the  generation 
[taking  on  generation],  imparts  an  ever  flowing  existence." 1 
Certainly,  nothing  less  than  this  can  give  any  rational  and 
conceivable  philosophy  of  the  universe.  All  science  leads 
directly  to  such  a  philosophy ;  all  facts  prove  its  truth  ;  and 
l  Laws,  Works  (Bohn),  V.  543. 


444  SCIENCE  IX  POETRY. 

this  comprehensible  conception  is,  at  least,  better  than  any 
incomprehensible  absurdity  that  ever  was,  or  can  be,  in- 
vented. The  Baconian  caution  is  a  good  one  :  that  we  are 
not  to  give  out  "  a  dream  of  our  fancy  for  an  exemplar  of 
the  world,"  but  rather,  "  under  divine  favor,  an  apocalyptic 
revelation  and  true  vision  of  the  tracks  and  ways  of  the 
Creator  in  Nature  and  His  creatures." * 

§    8.   SCIENCE    IN   POETRY. 

That  the  author  of  these  plays  had  arrived  at  a  similar 
view  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  is  made  clear  in 
many  passages.  How  else  can  we  understand  those  re- 
markable lines  of  the  "  Tempest,"  in  which,  having  brought 
upon  the  stage  a  scene  among  the  gods,  and  made  Juno, 
Ceres,  and  Iris  enact  a  play  before  mortal  eyes,  when  all  at 
once  they  vanish  at  the  bidding  of  the  magician,  Prospero, 
he  makes  him  say :  — 

"  These  our  actors, 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits,  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air; 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  that  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve, 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind.     We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of;  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

For,  this  vision  of  a  world  and  this  vision  of  the  stage 
are  made  essentially  in  the  same  manner  and  of  the  same 
stuff,  are  both  alike  substantial ;  and  yet,  they  may  vanish, 
like  an  insubstantial  pageant,  into  oblivion,  at  the  bidding 
of  the  Great  Magician,  when  his  time  shall  come. 

Again,  says  Bacon,  in  the  De  Augmentis,  "  This  Janus 

of  the  imagination  has  too  different  faces  ;  for  the  face 

towards  reason  hath  the  print  of  truth,  but  the  face  towards 

action  hath  the  print  of  goodness  " ;  an  expression,  which 

i  Lectori,  Works  (Boston),  VII.  161. 


SCIENCE  IX  POETRY.  445 

appears  again  in  a  letter,  in  which  he  prays  that,  living  or 
dying,  "  the  print  of  the  goodness  of  King  James  "  may  be 
in  his  heart ;  *  but  all  Calibans,  or  other  human  monsters, 

"  turn'd  to  barnacles,  or  to  apes 
With  foreheads  villainous  low,"  — 

and  all  Stephanos  and  Trinculos,  "  abhorred  slaves,"  that 
"  steal  by  line  and  level,"  and 

"  Which  any  print  of  goodness  will  not  take, 
Being  capable  of  all  ill," 

this  magician,  by  the  help  of  his  invisible  Ariel,  would 
soundly  hunt  out  of  his  kingdom,  when  his  "  Genius  "  should 
have  "  the  air  of  freedom  "  ;  and  his  labors  would  not  cease 
until  all  his  enemies  were  laid  at  his  feet.  And  he  was  able 
to  make  this  speech  :  — 

"  Ye  elves  of  hills,  brooks,  standing  lakes,  and  groves; 
And  ye,  that  on  the  sands  with  printless  foot 
Do  chase  the  ebbing  Neptune,  and  do  fly  him, 
When  he  comes  back  ;  you  demi-puppets,  that 
By  moonshine  do  the  green  sour  ringlets  make, 
Whereof  the  ewe  not  bites ;  and  you  whose  pastime 
Is  to  make  midnight  mushrooms,  that  rejoice 
To  hear  the  solemn  curfew ;  by  whose  aid 
(Weak  masters  though  ye  be)  I  have  bedimm'd 
The  noontide  sun,  call'd  forth  the  mutinous  winds, 
And  'twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azur'd  vault 
Set  roaring  war :  to  the  dread  rattling  thunder 
Have  I  given  fire,  and  rifted  Jove's  stout  oak 
With  his  own  bolt :  the  strong-bas'd  promontory 
Have  I  made  shake;  and  by  the  spurs  pluck'd  up 
The  pine  and  cedar:  graves,  at  my  command, 
Have  wak'd  their  sleepers ;  oped,  and  let  them  forth 
By  my  so  potent  art.  —  But  this  rough  magic 
I  here  abjure;  and  when  I  have  requir'd 
Some  heavenly  music,  (which  even  now  I  do,) 
To  work  mine  end  upon  their  senses,  that 
This  airy  charm  is  for,  I  '11  break  my  staff, 
Bury  it  certain  fadoms  in  the  earth, 
And,  deeper  than  did  ever  plummet  sound, 
I  '11  drown  my  book."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

The  "Tempest"  was  nearly  the  last  play  written,  or  perhaps 
i  Letter  of  July  30,  1624,  Works  (Philad.),  III.  24. 


446  SCIENCE  IN  POETRY. 

the  last  but  one  or  two  ;  and  his  booh  would  seem  to  have 
been  drowned  for  a  long  time,  and  buried  so  deep  as  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  any  but  a  "  Delian  diver."  x 

"Well  might  these  deep-sounding  revelations  and  true 
visions  of  the  traces  and  stamp  of  the  Creator  on  his 
creations  wake  up  whole  books  in  the  soul  of  Jean  Paul 
Richter  !  These  all-comprehending  conceptions  could  come 
only  from  the  philosopher,  the  student  of  Nature  as  well  as 
of  Plato,  whose  thought  had  fathomed  the  depths  and 
hidden  mysteries  of  the  universe,  and  discovered  that  "  God 
hath  framed  the  mind  of  man  as  a  mirror  or  glass,  capable 
of  the  image  of  the  universal  world."  For,  as  he  says, 
again,  "  that  alone  is  true  philosophy,  which  doth  faithfully 
render  the  very  words  of  the  world,  and  it  is  written  no 
otherwise  than  the  world  doth  dictate,  it  being  nothing  else 
but  the  image  or  reflection  of  it,  not  adding  anything  of  its 
own,  but  only  iterates  and  resounds." 2  In  his  scheme, 
philosophy  is  the  text,  and  the  universe  is  the  book  of 
plates,  —  the  illustration  and  the  proof  so  far ;  that  is,  as 
far  as  it  is  visible  and  knowable  to  observation  and  ex- 
perience :  beyond  all  the  scopes  of  physical  science,  it  is, 
as  it  were,  the  book  without  the  plates,  and  for  illustration, 
the  reader  must,  like  the  mathematician,  construct  his  own 
models,  charts,  and  diagrams.  Some  men,  like  children, 
see  nothing  but  the  plates,  and  continue  all  their  lives  to 
be  dazzled  with  the  pictures,  scarcely  conceiving  that  there 
is  any  text  at  all ;  being  capable  of  nothing  but  miraculous 
child's  fables,  mystic  revelations,  airy  charms,  and  various 
kinds  of  spirit-playing  and  spirit-rapping.  Things  which 
fly  too  high  over  their  heads  must  be  drawn  down  to  their 
senses.  Some  others  advance  to  the  end  of  the  plates  and 
stop  there,  finding  no  more  proof  of  any  fact,  and  so  think- 
ing that  they  have  arrived  at  the  land's  end,  because  all 
around  appears  to  be  open  sea ;  while  some  others,  again, 

1  Timaeus  of  Plato,  71;  Be  Aug.  Trans.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  22. 
8  Wisd.  of  the  Ancts.,  Works  (Mont),  II.  2. 


SCIENCE  IN  POETRY.  447 

stretch  onward,  constructing  their  own  plates,  charts,  com- 
passes, scopes,  being  born  pilots,  and  finding  no  end  to  the 
universe  of  fact  but  in  the  limits  of  their  own  lives  and 
labors  ;  sometimes  too  safely  denying  more  land  than  they 
can  discover.  Still  others,  by  the  light  of  superior  genius 
shining  within  them  and  reflected  in  the  world  without 
them,  industriously,  perseveringly,  and  fainting  not,  hold 
still  onward,  believing  yet  with  such  as  Bacon,  or  Columbus, 
that  "they  are  but  ill  discoverers  who  think  there  is  no 
land,  when  they  can  see  nothing  but  sea  "  ;  —  until  they  run 
against  Fate :  — 

"  Othello.    Who  can  control  his  fate  ?  — ... 
Here  is  my  journey's  end,  here  is  my  butt, 
And  very  sea-mark  of  my  utmost  sail."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

Bacon  understood  how  "  knowledge  is  a  double  of  that 
which  is,"  and  that  "  the  truth  of  being  and  the  truth  of 
knowing  is  all  one."  He  considered  that  "  the  sovereignty 
of  man  lieth  hid  in  knowledge,"  as  it  is  beautifully  pre- 
figured in  the  Prospero  of  the  "  Tempest,"  and  he  recog- 
nized "  the  happy  match  between  the  mind  of  man  and  the 
nature  of  things,  and  the  science  or  providence  comprehend- 
ing all  things '" ;  as  Hamlet  saw,  that  there  was  "  a  special 
providence  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow."  He  looked  upon  the 
universe  as  the  book  of  God's  works,  and  he  frequently 
quotes  Solomon  as  saying,  "  That  it  is  the  glory  of  God  to 
conceal  a  thing,  but  the  glory  of  a  king  to  find  it  out,  as  if, 
according  to  the  innocent  play  of  children,  the  Divine 
Majesty  took  delight  to  hide  his  works,  to  the  end  to  have 
them  found  out"  ; 1  and  he  says,  again,  "  The  spirit  of  man 
is  the  lamp  of  God,  wherewith  he  searcheth  the  inwardness 
of  all  secrets." 2  And  so  says  the  Soothsayer  in  the  play :  — 
"  In  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy, 
A  little  I  can  read."  —  Ant.  and  Cleo.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Nor  did  he  think  it  was,  in  Nature, 
"A  juggling  trick,  — to  be  secretly  open."—  Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

l  Advancement.  a  Works  (Mont.),  XVI.  Note  68. 


448  SCIENCE  IN  POETRY. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  Goethe,  finding  that  his  own  "  open 
secret,"  as  well  as  many  other  things,  for  the  means  of 
comprehending  which,  he  was,  as  he  in  some  degree  ac- 
knowledges, much  indebted  to  the  philosophies  of  Plato, 
Spinoza,  and  Kant,  had  been  known  to  Shakespeare  as 
well,  should  pronounce  this  wonderful  Bard  of  Avon  the 
greatest  of  modern  poets.  Modern  transcendental  moralists 
and  poets  have  discovered  many  new  wonders  in  Shake- 
speare. They  have  much  to  say  about  man  being  "  a 
microcosm,"  though  not  always  particular  to  mention  that 
the  doctrine  is  as  old  as  Plato,  or  the  fable  of  Pan,  nor  that 
Bacon  fully  comprehended  the  meaning  of  that  wise  saw, 
as  any  one  may  see  in  his  interpretation  of  that  fable  ;  but 
he  frequently  speaks  of  the  "  ancient  opinion  that  man  was 
microcosmus"  and  of  "  the  spirit  of  man,  whom  they  call 
the  microcosm  "  ;  and  we  have  it  in  the  play  thus  :  — 

"  Men.  If  you  see  this  in  the  map  of  my  microcosm,  follows  it,  that  I 
am  known  well  enough,  too  ?  "  —  Cor.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

In  the  style  of  poetry,  but  not  less  according  to  the  truth 
of  philosophy,  Goethe  images  forth  the  visible  universe  as 
the  "  garment "  of  God :  — 

"  Spirit.    Thus,  at  the  roaring  loom  of  Time  I  ply, 
And  weave  the  garment  which  thou  see'st  him  by." 

Bacon,  in  like  manner,  interpreting  the  Fable  of  Cupid,  as 
being  intended  to  shadow  forth  some  conception  of  the 
Divine  Person  under  the  image  of  Cupid  born  of  the 
egg,  hatched  beneath  the  brooding  wing  of  Night,  and  co- 
eval with  Chaos,  speaks  of  the  primary  visible  matter  as 
being  "  the  vest  of  Cupid  " ;  and  a  like  philosophy  seems 
to  underlie  this  passage  from  the  Othello  :  — 

"  Cae.    Most  fortunately :  he  hath  achiev'd  a  maid 
That  paragons  description  and  wild  fame ; 
One  that  excels  the  quirks  of  blazoning  pens, 
And  in  th'  essential  vesture  of  creation 
Does  bear  all  excellency."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

and  this,  again,  from  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice  " :  — 


SCIENCE  IN  POETRY.  449 

"  Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls ; 
But,  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  the  same  idea  appears  in  plain  prose  thus  :  — 

"  For  though  we  Christians  do  continually  aspire  and  pant  after  the  land 
of  promise,  yet  it  will  be  a  token  of  God's  favour  towards  us  in  our  jour- 
neyings  through  this  world's  wilderness,  to  have  our  shoes  and  garments  (I 
mean  those  of  our  frail  bodies)  little  worn  or  impaired."  l 

And  surely  the  author  of  the  "  Cymbeline  "  was  not  far 
from  the  same  conception,  when  he  wrote  concerning  Ju- 
piter's tablet,  delivered  down  out  of  his  "  radiant  roof," 
thus :  — 

"  [Ghosts  vanish.    Posthumus  wakes,  and  Jinds  the  Tablet.} 

Poslh.    What  fairies  haunt  this  ground  ?    A  book  ?    0,  rare  one ! 
Be  not,  as  is  our  fangled  world,  a  garment 

Nobler  than  that  it  covers 

[Reads  the  Tablet.} 

'T  is  still  a  dream,  or  else  such  stuff  as  madmen 

Tongue,  and  brain  not;  either  both,  or  nothing: 

Or  senseless  speaking,  or  a  speaking  such 

As  sense  cannot  untie.    Be  what  it  is, 

The  action  of  my  life  is  like  it,  which 

I  '11  keep,  if  but  for  sympathy."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

Again,  Prospero  says  to  Miranda  in  the  "  Tempest " :  — 

"  Lend  thy  hand, 
And  pluck  my  magic  garment  from  me.  —  So : 
Lie  there,  my  art."  —  Act  1.  Sc.  2. 

Materialistic  science,  on  the  one  hand,  and  unphilosophi- 
cal  theology,  on  the  other,  have,  in  all  times,  come  equally 
short  of  comprehending  the  great  truth  here  indicated. 
One  thinks  there  is  nothing  but  the  garment,  or,  at  least, 
that  the  garment  covers  nothing :  the  other  thinks  like- 
wise that  the  garment  covers  nothing  nobler  than  itself; 
but  that  the  Maker  of  it,  when  it  was  finished  and  pro- 
nounced good,  plucked  it  from  him  and  hung  it  in  the 
heavens,  and  that  he  has  ever  since  sat  apart  on  a  throne 
above  his  "  radiant  roof,"  contemplating  and  judging  his 

1  Dedication  to  the  Bist.  of  Life  and  Death. 
29 


450  SCIENCE  IN  POETRY. 

handiwork,  only  occasionally  delivering  down  a  miraculous 
tablet;  but  that  his  art  lasted  six  days,  and  ceased  alto- 
gether some  six  thousand  years  ago.  As  that  book,  that 
"  rare  one,"  has  been  more  worshipped,  in  our  "  new- 
fangled mansions," *  than  what  of  truth  it  contains  and 
reveals,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  has  the  physical  garment 
been  held  nobler  than  that  it  covers.  The  ancients  knew 
better  than  this  ;  for  they  held  with  Bacon,  Shakespeare's 
plays,  Berkeley,  Goethe,  Jean  Paul,  and  many  more  mod- 
ern disciples  of  the  Higher  Philosophy,  that  the  visible 
world  was  but  the  vest  of  Cupid,  the  visible  manifestation 
of  the  Invisible  Essence,  which  is  eternally  weaving  the 
web  of  His  physical  garment,  in  the  Roaring  Loom  of 
Time  and  Space.  Indeed,  the  hieroglyphic  Sacred  Books  of 
the  ancient  Egyptians  seem  to  read  much  to  the  same 
effect,  as  deciphered  by  Seyffarth  :  —  "I  am  that  I  am.  I 
weave  the  garments  (bodies)  of  men.  I  am  the  shining 
garment  of  the  sky.  I  have  fashioned  the  verdure  of  the 
earthly  pasture.  I  have  woven  the  hosts  of  worlds,  —  the 
High  and  Holy  God.  Songs  and  anthems  of  praise  to  the 
Master  Architect,  who  made  the  world,  who  made  it  for  the 
habitation  of  man,  the  Creator's  image."  2  As  the  highest 
ancient,  so  the  highest  modern  voice,  still  exclaims :  —  "  O 
thou  unfathomable  mystic  All,  garment  and  dwelling-place 
of  the  Unnamed ;  and  thou  articulate-speaking  Spirit  of 
Man,  who  mouldest  and  modellest  that  Unfathomable  Un- 
nameable  even  as  we  see,  —  is  not  there  a  miracle  !  " 8 

Time  and  Space,  as  necessary  laws  of  thought,  divine  or 
human,  as  fundamental  principles  or  conditions  of  ideas 
or  things,  and  those  complex  keys  which  alone  unlock  the 
door  of  the  inner  sanctuaries,  have  tasked  the  brains  of  the 
deepest  thinkers  from  Plato  and  his  cave  down  to  Kant,  or 
Cousin ;   and  this  author,  too,  seems  to  have  understood 

1  Bacon's  Theory  of  the  Firmament. 

2  Summary  (N.  York,  1857),  p.  65-8. 
■-*  Carlyle's  French  Rev.,  I.  34-t. 


SCIENCE  IN  POETRY.  451 

something  of  their  nature.  He  knew  that  Time  carried  a 
wallet  at  his  back  wherein  he  put  alms  for  oblivion ;  and 
Imogen,  at  the  departure  of  Posthumus,  watched  him,  — 

"  till  the  diminution 
Of  space  had  pointed  him  sharp  as  my  needle; 
Nay,  followed  him,  till  he  had  melted  from 
The  smallness  of  a  gnat  to  air."  —  Cymb.,  Act  1.  Sc.  4. 

And  Belarius,  leaving  his  companions  at  the  cave,  to  as- 
cend the  mountains,  says  to  them  :  — 

"  Consider 
When  you  above  perceive  me  like  a  crow, 
That  it  is  place  which  lessens  and  sets  off." 

Ibid.  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

He  understood,  too,  how  things  appear  great  or  small  to 
mortal  eyes,  without  much  reference  to  what  they  really 
are  in  themselves,  and  that  the  truest  greatness  is  some- 
times scarcely  visible  at  all  to  common  senses ;  as  when 
Belarius  says  to  his  boys  of  the  forest  and  mountain  :  — 

"  And  often,  to  our  comfort,  shall  we  find 
The  sharded  beetle  in  a  safer  hold 
Than  is  the  full-winged  eagle."  —  lb.,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Which  may  remind  the  reader  of  Jean  Paul  in  search  of 

happiness,  now  soaring  above  the  clouds  of  life,  and  again 

sinking  down  under  a  leaf  in  a  furrow  of  his  garden,  or 

rather,  again,  alternating  between  the  two  ;  or  of  Emerson, 

who  says :  — 

"  There  is  no  great  and  no  small 
To  the  soul  that  maketh  all." 

But  unto  "  poor  unfledged  "  boys  of  the  forest,  that  have 
"  never  wing'd  from  view  o'  the  nest,"  it  is 

"  A  cell  of  ignorance,  travelling  abed, 
A  prison  for  a  debtor,  that  dares  not 
To  stride  a  limit."  —  lb.,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"  The  common  people,"  says  Bacon,  "  understand  not 
many  excellent  virtues ;  the  lowest  virtues  draw  praise 
from  them  ;  the  middle  virtues  work  in  them  astonishment 
or  admiration ;  but  of  the  highest  virtues  they  have  no 


452  REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION. 

sense  or  perceiving  at  all ;  but  shows  and  species  virtutibus 
similes  serve  best  with  them  "  ;  and  so,  according  to  Ham- 
let, the  groundlings  were,  for  the  most  part,  "  capable  of 
nothing  but  inexplicable  dumb  shows  and  noise." 

§  9.    REMEMBRANCE    AND    OBLIVION. 

The  doctrine  of  Plato,  that  human  knowledge  is  but 
reminiscence,  seems  to  have  taken  strong  hold  of  Bacon's 
mind.  In  the  way  in  which  this  doctrine  is  generally  stated 
and  received,  it  would  appear  that  Plato  conceived  the 
human  soul  to  have  had  an  existence,  as  such,  previous  to 
its  birth  into  this  world,  and  that,  in  that  former  state  of 
existence,  it  was  in  possession  of  all  knowledge ;  and  so,  that 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge  in  this  world  was  simply  a 
process  of  recollection  or  reminiscence  of  what  had  been 
better  known  before.  So  Origen  and  some  learned  fathers 
of  the  Church  seem  to  have  understood  him.  Burton  ex- 
pounds him  thus :  "  Plato  in  Timaeo  and  in  his  Phaedon 
(for  aught  I  can  perceive)  differs  not  much  from  this  opinion, 
that  it  [the  soul]  was  from  God  at  first,  and  knew  all,  but 
being  inclosed  in  the  body,  it  forgets,  and  learns  anew, 
which  he  calls  reminiscentia,  or  recalling,  and  that  it  was 
put  into  the  body  for  a  punishment." 1  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  Plato  has  been  correctly  interpreted  in  this :  his 
expression  is  somewhat  obscure.  Bacon  states  the  doctrine 
a  little  differently,  thus :  "  That  all  knowledge  is  but  remem- 
brance, and  that  the  mind  of  man  by  nature  knoweth  all 
things,  and  hath  but  her  own  native  and  original  motions 
(which  by  the  strangeness  and  darkness  of  this  tabernacle 
of  the  body  are  sequestered)  again  revived  and  restored."  2 
Here  the  idea  is,  that  it  is  the  nature  of  the  mind  to  know 
all  things,  and  what  is  wanting  is,  that  its  native  and  origi- 
nal powers,  for  a  time  overshadowed  and  repressed,  should 
be  restored  to  activity,  whereby  the  strangeness  and  dark- 

1  Anat.  of  Mel,  I.  217  (Boston,  1862). 

2  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Works  (Mont.),  II-  4. 


REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION.  453 

ness  of  the  tabernacle  might  be  cleared  up  and  ignorance 
disappear.  Something  of  the  sound  and  quality  of  this 
statement  may  be  discovered  as  a  sort  of  ground-swell 
rolling  underneath  the  dialogue  of  the  Bishops  concerning 
young  Henry  V.,  the  late  wicked  Prince  Hal,  who  had  all 
at  once  begun  to  reason  in  divinity,  and  debate  of  common- 
wealth affairs,  war,  and  any  cause  of  policy :  — 

"  Cant.    Since  his  addiction  was  to  courses  vain ; 
His  companies  unletter'd,  rude,  and  shallow; 
His  hours  fill'd  up  with  riots,  banquets,  sports; 
And  never  noted  in  him  any  study, 
Any  retirement,  any  sequestration 
From  open  haunts  and  popularity. 

Ely.  The  strawberry  grows  underneath  the  nettle, 
And  wholesome  berries  thrive  and  ripen  best, 
Neighbour'd  by  fruit  of  baser  quality : 
And  so  the  Prince  obscur'd  his  contemplation 
Under  the  veil  of  wildness ;  which,  no  doubt, 
Grew  like  the  summer  grass,  fastest  by  night, 
Unseen,  yet  crescive  in  his  faculty. 

Cant.    It  must  be  so ;  for  miracles  are  ceas'd ; 
And  therefore  we  must  needs  admit  the  means 
How  things  are  perfected."  —  Hen.  V.,  Act  J.  Sc.  1. 

And  when  Prospero  is  sounding  the  youthful  Miranda  as  to 
her  remembrance  of  her  origin,  we  have  this  dialogue :  — 

"Pros.  Canst  thou  remember 

A  time  before  we  came  into  this  cell  ? 
I  do  not  think  thou  canst;  for  then  thou  wast  not 
Out  three  years  old. 

Mir.  Certainly,  sir,  I  can. 

Pros.    By  what?  by  any  other  house,  or  person? 
Of  any  thing  the  image  tell  me,  that 
Hath  kept  with  thy  remembrance. 

Mir.  'T  is  far  off, 

And  rather  like  a  dream  than  an  assurance 
That  my  remembrance  warrants.     Had  I  not 
Four  or  five  women  once,  that  tended  me  ? 

Pros.   Thou  hadst,  and  more,  Miranda.    But  how  is  it, 
That  this  lives  in  thy  mind  ?    What  seest  thou  else 
In  the  dark  backward  and  abysm  of  time  ? 
If  thou  remember'st  aught,  ere  thou  cam'st  here, 
How  thou  cam'st  here,  thou  may'st. 

Mir.  But  that  I  do  not."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 


454  REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION. 

This  is  more  in  keeping  with  Bacon's  statement,  and  con- 
tains an  implied  negation  of  the  received  interpretation  as 
teaching  a  former  existence  of  the  human  soul  as  such ;  for, 
certainly,  if  a  man  could  remember  anything  before  he 
came  here,  he  might  also  remember  how  he  came.  There 
is  a  certain  ambiguity  in  Plato  himself  as  well  as  in  Bacon, 
Berkeley,  and  some  more  modern  writers,  on  this  point, 
which  arises  from  the  circumstance  that  they  do  not  always 
clearly  and  expressly  distinguish,  when  treating  of  the  soul, 
whether  they  intend  to  speak  of  the  human  soul,  or  of  the 
Divine  Soul ;  and  hence  comes  the  misconception.  The 
dialectic  method  of  Plato,  pursuing  the  logical  path  and 
process  of  scientific  thinking,  endeavored  to  arrive  at  all 
science  in  a  critical  exegesis  of  those  fundamental  laws  of  all 
thought,  divine  or  human,  which  are  the  same  for  all  souls. 
All  science  can  be  in  the  divine  mind  alone ;  but  the 
human  mind  as  partaker  of  the  universal  reason,  and  being 
endowed  with  a  certain  scope  of  intellectual  vision  and  a 
certain  power  of  thinking,  might,  by  the  exercise  of  that 
power,  its  native  and  original  motion,  in  a  critical  analysis 
of  that  reason,  and  in  a  thorough  contemplation  of  nature, 
approach,  if  not  quite  attain  to  all  science,  by  coming  thus 
to  a  conscious  knowledge  of  all  Nature  and  of  the  laws  and 
modes  of  creative  thought,  so  be  only  it  were  crescive  in  its 
faculty ;  and  this  method  of  attaining,  or  rather  reviving, 
knowledge  in  the  soul,  was  a  mere  process  of  recollection 
or  reminiscence  of  what  had  been  known  before,  —  not  by 
any  means  by  the  human  soul  in  any  previous  state  of 
finite  existence,  but  by  the  divine  mind  itself,  in  which  is 
all  knowledge  always  ;  as  when,  in  another  place,  speaking 
of  the  finite  mind  only,  Plato  says,  that  "  recollection  is  the 
influx  of  thoughts  which  had  left  us."1  Again,  he  says, 
"  The  whole  of  nature  being  of  one  kindred,  and  the  soul 
[i.  e.  the  Divine  Soul]  having  heretofore  known  all  things, 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  a  person  [i.  e.  a  human  soul], 
i  Laws,  Works  (Bohn),  V.  151. 


REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION.  455 

who  remembers  —  what  men  call  learning  —  only  one  thing, 
from  again  discovering  all  the  rest ;  if  he  has  but  courage 
and  seeking  faints  not  For  to  search  and  to  learn  is  rem- 
iniscence all." 1  And  so,  he  says,  again,  "  This  is  a  recollec- 
tion of  those  things  which  our  soul  formerly  saw,  when 
journeying  with  deity  [«.  e.  when  identical  with  the  Divine 
Soul  itself,  and  previous  to  any  existence  as  a  special  soul], 
despising  the  things  which  we  now  say  are,  and  looking  up 
to  that  which  really  is  " ; 2  for  while  the  divine  mind  con- 
templates only  real  existence  and  the  actual  truth  of  things, 
the  human  soul,  sequestered  as  it  is  under  the  veil  of  wild- 
ness  in  the  darkness  of  the  tabernacle,  in  the  short-sighted- 
ness of  weak  intellectual  vision,  and  in  the  half-delusive 
purblindness  of  sense-perception,  is,  on  all  sides,  limited, 
baffled,  deceived,  confused,  and  confounded,  by  mere  ap- 
pearances and  illusions,  and  still  more,  by  the  fantasies  of 
its  own  creation.  Not,  by  any  means,  that  it  is  impossible 
for  the  human  mind,  by  pursuing  in  a  scientific  manner 
either  the  dialectic  method  of  pure  metaphysics,  or  the 
experimental,  inductive,  and  interpretative  method  of  phys- 
ical science  —  by  travelling  either  road  —  to  compass,  at 
length,  "  the  order,  operation,  and  Mind  of  Nature,"  and  to 
arrive,  at  last,  at  a  scientific  knowledge  of  the  actual  con- 
stitution of  the  universe  and  of  the  order  of  divine  Prov- 
idence in  it,  in  a  sound  and  true  philosophy,  which  shall 
amount  to  universal  science,  or  Sapience.  But  in  this  the 
inductive  method  must  be  understood  in  Bacon's  way  ;  for, 
with  him,  it  was  not  any  form  of  syllogism,  nor  any  system 
of  logic,  nor  any  mere  experimentation,  observation,  or 
experience  of  isolated  and  heterogeneous  facts,  with  endless 
descriptions  and  catalogues,  but  a  method  for  the  actual 
interpretation  of  nature,  using  both  the  senses  and  the 
intellect,  by  the  help  of  which  the  observer  should  get  to 
see  the  facts,  whether  by  the  senses,  instruments,  experi- 

1  Meno,  Works  (Bohn),  III.  20. 

2  Pliadrus,  Works  (Bohn),  I.  325. 


456  REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION. 

ments,  analyses,  scopes,  or  in  any  other  way,  and  then 
should  be  enabled  to  read,  conceive,  understand,  compre- 
hend, and  know,  what  they  are,  and  what  they  mean ;  in 
which  he  would  have  need  of  the  faculty  of  intellectual 
vision  and  metaphysical  insight,  if  he  would  expect  to 
become  a  true  Interpreter  of  Nature.  He  takes  especial 
care  to  make  the  distinction  everywhere  between  nature 
considered  in  reference  to  the  human  observer,  and  nature 
in  reference  to  the  divine  mind  creating  nature :  — 

"  There  is  an  art  which,  in  their  piedness,  shares 
With  great  creating  Nature  " ;  — 

and  he  cautions  the  student  against  "  that  grand  deception 
of  the  senses,  in  that  they  draw  the  lines  of  nature  with 
reference  to  man  and  not  with  reference  to  the  universe ; 
and  this  is  not  to  be  corrected  except  by  reason  and  uni- 
versal philosophy." 1 

But  in  either  way,  illusions  must  be  distinguished  from 
realities,  appearance  from  essence,  sophism  from  logical 
thinking,  truth  from  falsehood,  external  fact  and  eternal 
truth  from  the  visionary  creations  of  the  uncritical  fancy, 
until  the  intellectual  eye  shall  come  to  see  all  science  cor- 
rectly, or  until  the  eye  of  science  and  sense-perception,  by 
thorough  and  complete  observation,  searching  matter  and 
phenomena  to  the  bottom,  shall  come  to  see  all  the  differ- 
ence between  reality  and  appearance,  cause  and  effect, 
living  substance  and  dead  substratum  (the  last  illusion  that 
will  vanish),  and  arrive  at  last  by  that  road  at  a  true  knowl- 
edge of  "  the  last  and  positive  power  and  cause  of  nature," 
that  self-existent  and  uncaused  power  that  creates  the  whole 
and  is  all  in  all ;  when  these  physical  eyes  shall  discover 
that  they  have  been,  or  can  be,  nothing  more  than  helps  to 
the  intellectual  vision,  which  alone  can  clearly  see,  with 
Plato,  that  "  all  existences  are  nothing  else  but  power,"  and 
power  of  the  nature  wholly  of  that  power  of  thought,  or 
i  Works  (Boston),  VIII.  283. 


REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION.  457 

soul,  which  moves  itself,  and  imparts  an  everflowing  exist- 
ence, thinking  a  universe. 

And  here  it  is,  upon  this  common  platform,  that  the  two 
roads  meet.  Royal  Societies  and  National  Institutes  are 
beginning  to  find,  after  some  centuries  of  busy  search  and 
experimentation,  that  there  is  nothing  left  of  matter  but 
"  laws  and  forces  " ;  that  these  are  mathematical ;  and  that 
the  great  powers  in  nature  are  but  "  exponents  of  different 
forms  of  force,"  or  modes  of  power :  wherein  the  swelling 
waters  of  our  sea  of  science  begin  to  approach  the  same 
level  to  which  they  had  risen  in  Plato,  with  a  fair  prospect 
that  they  may  finally  reach,  with  Bacon,  the  spring-head 
and  fountain  source  of  all  philosophy.  For  physicists  and 
metaphysicians  are  like  two  ships'  companies  sailing  on  a 
great  circle  around  Bacon's  Intellectual  Globe,  starting  off 
in  opposite  directions,  but  sure  to  meet  at  the  antipodes  in 
one  and  the  same  land  of  promise,  when 

"  The  wheel  is  come  full  circle."  —  Lear,  Act  V.  Sc.  8. 

Nor  did  either  Bacon,  or  Plato,  imagine  it  was  possible 
for  all  men,  by  either  method  of  procedure,  to  attain  to  a 
complete  understanding  of  all  science,  much  less  to  a  per- 
fect knowledge  of  God  and  divine  things.  "  A  matter  of 
that  kind,"  says  Plato,  "  cannot  be  expressed  by  words,  like 
other  things  to  be  learnt,  but  by  a  living  intercourse  with 
the  subject,  and  living  with  it  a  light  is  kindled  on  a  sud- 
den, as  if  from  a  leaping  fire,  and  being  engendered  in  the 
soul,  feeds  itself  upon  itself." *  No  more  would  Bacon  re- 
peat the  offence  of  Prometheus  against  Minerva,  and  incur 
danger  of  the  penalty  of  a  perpetual  gnawing  of  his  liver, 
—  being  no  other,  says  he,  than  ■  that  into  which  men  not 
unfrequently  fall  when  puffed  up  with  arts  and  much 
knowledge,  —  of  trying  to  bring  the  divine  wisdom  itself 
under  the  dominion  of  sense  and  reason :  from  which  at- 

i  Epistle  to  Dionysius,  Works  (Bohn),  VII.  524. 


458  REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION. 

tempt  inevitably  follows  laceration  of  the  mind  and  vexation 
without  end  or  rest."  1 

At  any  rate,  the  statement  of  Bacon  would  seem  to  ad- 
mit of  a  construction  something  like  this  :  that  previous  to 
the  first  appearance  of  the  soul  in  a  finite  body  and  form, 
(at  whatever  precise  point  in  the  flow  of  the  physical 
stream,  that  may  take  place,)  it  was  identical  with  the  in- 
finite soul  itself,  and,  as  such,  possessed  of  all  knowledge  : 
in  other  words,  the  finite  soul  is  a  special  exhibition  of  the 
one  divine  power  of  thought  itself,  invested  for  the  time  being 
in  a  visible  physical  body,  or  as  it  may  very  well  be,  also, 
hereafter,  in  a  spiritual  or  ethereal  invisible  physical  body, 
and  limited  in  that  manner  on  the  physical  side  so  far  only 
as  to  give  the  exact  objective  individuality  of  body,  and  in 
a  special  way  on  the  side  of  its  own  origin,  and  in  such 
manner  as  to  give  the  exact  subjective  speciality,  —  "  soul 
and  body  compounded  "  ;  the  definite  personality  arising  in 
the  concurrence  of  the  two  kinds  of  limitation.  Then,  as 
to  the  divine  power  of  thought  itself  (for,  says  Bacon,  speak- 
ing of  this  power,  "  knowledge  is  a  power  whereby  he 
knoweth  "),  remembrance  would  be  co-extensive  with  the 
existent  creation  and  identical  with  knowledge  in  God; 
and  ceasing  to  remember  and  know  would  be  oblivion,  or 
annihilation  of  what  was  so  forgotten.  And  so,  likewise, 
says  Plato,  "  do  we  not  call  this  oblivion,  Simmias, 
the  loss  of  knowledge  ?  " 2  What  the  finite  mind  could 
remember  and  know  would  be  its  own  creations  and  ac- 
quired knowledge,  whether  it  were  acquired  by  the  dialectics 
of  scientific  thinking,  or  by  observation  and  experience ; 
and  so,  what  the  human  mind  can  come  to  know,  would  be, 
for  the  man  himself,  acquired  knowledge,  though,  when 
speaking  in  relation  to  the  universal  soul,  it  might  be  called 
a  kind  of  reminiscence.  So  far,  then,  as  human  knowledge 
may  go,  it  may  be  called  knowledge,  or  reminiscence,  as 

i  Prometheus,  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  155. 
a  Phcedon,   Works  (Bonn),  I.  77. 


REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION.  459 

we  speak  with  reference  to  the  one  mind  or  the  other.  All 
knowledge  is,  and  must  be,  in  remembrance.  Beyond  this 
extent  of  human  knowledge,  all  is  oblivion,  and  as  if  it 
were  not,  for  the  finite  man ;  and  beyond  the  whole  pres- 
ent state  of  the  divine  thought,  which  is  the  existent  uni- 
verse, and  beyond  the  eternal  continuity  of  the  divine 
Existence  and  his  power  to  think  and  create,  all  is  oblivion 
and  utter  nonentity.  "  It  is  an  effect  of  one  and  the  same 
omnipotency,"  says  Bacon,  "  to  make  nothing  of  somewhat 
as  to  make  somewhat  of  nothing  "  ;  that  is,  to  think  some- 
thing into  existence  which  did  not  exist  before  as  such 
thing,  or  to  let  it  vanish  again  into  oblivion,  according  to 
the  "  twin  propositions :  nothing  is  produced  from  nothing, 
and  nothing  is  reduced  to  nothing."  But  in  this,  we  must 
all  the  while  keep  in  view  the  essence,  the  very  substance, 
of  the  thing,  and  not  merely  the  temporary  form :  the  sub- 
stance is  withdrawn,  and  the  form  vanishes. 

The  acquiring  of  knowledge,  then,  in  man,  is  not  exactly 
a  process  of  reminiscence  or  recollection  of  what  he  ever 
knew  before  as  a  special  soul :  more  strictly,  for  him,  it  is 
a  process  of  getting  to  see,  understand,  and  know,  so 
far,  what  is  remembered,  thought,  and  done,  in  the  divine 
mind  ;  and,  if  possible,  that  he  himself  exists,  and  how,  and 
that  God  and  the  universe  exist,  and  in  what  manner ;  all 
which,  by  the  strangeness  and  darkness  of  this  tabernacle 
of  the  body,  has  been  very  much  sequestered.  As  to  the 
finite  mind,  its  own  remembered  creations  constitute  a  part 
of  its  knowledge,  and  they  are  created  in  that  same  blank 
region  of  All  Possibility,  in  which  the  universe  itself  is 
created,  and  its  forgettings  are  added  to  that  same  dark 
blank  of  oblivion  into  which  all  forgotten  things  go,  and 
which  the  ancients  endeavored  to  figure  to  their  imagina- 
tions under  the  form  of  that  boundless  shadow,  the  brood- 
ing wing  of  Night, 

That  something  like  this  was  Bacon's  conception  of  the 
nature  of  remembrance  and  oblivion,  is  evident  in  numer- 


460  REMEMBRANCE  AND   OBLIVION. 

ous  passages  in  his  writings.  Here  is  one  :  —  "  Solomon 
saith,  There  is  no  new  thing  upon  the  earth.  So  that  as 
Plato  had  an  imagination,  That  all  knowledge  was  but  remem- 
brance, so  Solomon  giveth  this  sentence,  That  all  novelty  is 
but  oblivion.  Whereby  you  may  see  that  the  river  of 
Lethe  runneth  as  well  above  ground  as  below."  He  cites 
further  the  opinion  of  "  an  abstruse  astrologer,"  that  "  if  it 
were  not  for  two  things  that  are  constant  (the  one  is,  that 
the  fixed  stars  ever  stand,  and  never  come  nearer  together, 
nor  go  farther  asunder  ;  the  other,  that  the  diurnal  motion 
perpetually  keeps  time),  no  individual  would  last  one  mo- 
ment "  ;  and,  he  adds,  "  certain  it  is  that  the  matter  is  in  a 
perpetual  flux,  and  never  at  a  stay."  In  the  Pythagorean 
doctrine  of  Palingenesia,  souls  went  from  one  body  into 
another,  first  having  drunk  of  the  water  of  Lethe, — 
"  epotd  prius  Lethes  unda." 

This  same  Lethean  doctrine  of  strangeness,  darkness, 
and  oblivion  appears  very  often  in  the  plays  also.  The 
ghost  coming  up  from  below,  where  the  river  of  Lethe 
runs  under  ground,  says  to  Hamlet :  — 

"  I  find  thee  apt ; 
And  duller  should'st  thou  be  than  the  fat  weed 
That  roots  itself  in  ease  on  Lethe  wharf, 
Would'st  thou  not  stir  in  this :  now  Hamlet,  hear." 

Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

And  this  saying  of  Solomon  may  be  traced  in  the  fol- 
lowing lines  from  the  Sonnets  :  — 

"  If  there  be  nothing  new,  but  that  which  is, 
Hath  been  before,  how  are  our  brains  beguil'd, 
Which  laboring  for  invention  bear  amiss 
The  second  burthen  of  a  former  child?  "  —  Son.  lix. 

And  again,  in  these  :  — 

"  No !  Time,  thou  shalt  not  boast  that  I  do  change. 
Thy  pyramids  built  up  with  newer  might 
To  me  are  nothing  novel,  nothing  strange ; 
They  are  but  dressings  of  a  former  sight." 

Son.  cxxiii. 


REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION.  461 

The  strangeness  as  well  as  the  darkness  of  the  taber- 
nacle seems  to  have  been  borrowed  from  Plato,  who  says, 
"  what  is  strange  is  the  result  of  ignorance  in  the  case  of 
all  "  ;  and  the  play  repeats  it  thus  :  — 

"  Clo.  Madman,  thou  errest:  I  say,  there  is  no  darkness  hut  ignorance; 
in  which  thou  art  more  puzzled  than  the  Egyptians  in  their  fog." — Twelfth 
Night,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

And  the  forest  home  of  Belarius's  boys  was  to  them 
"  A  cell  of  ignorance." 

And  this- same  doctrine  of  novelty  and  oblivion  under- 
lies, no  less  subtly,  these  passages  from  the  "  Measure  for 
Measure  " :  — 

"  Escal.    What  news  abroad  i'  the  world? 

Duke.  [In  disguise.]  None,  but  that  there  is  so  great  a  fever  on  good- 
ness, that  the  dissolution  of  it  must  cure  it:  novelty  is  only  in  request;  and 
it  is  as  dangerous  to  be  aged  in  any  kind  of  course,  as  it  is  virtuous  to  be 
constant  in  any  undertaking.  There  is  scarce  truth  enough  alive  to  make 
societies  secure,  but  security  enough  to  make  fellowships  accursed.  Much 
upon  this  riddle  runs  the  wisdom  of  the  world.  This  news  is  old  enough, 
yet  it  is  every  day's  news."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

"  Duke.    [In  person.]    0,  your  desert  speaks  loud ;  and  I  should  wrong  it, 
To  lock  it  in  the  wards  of  covert  bosom, 
When  it  deserves  with  characters  of  brass 
A  forted  residence  'gainst  the  tooth  of  time,  « 

And  razure  of  oblivion."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Again,  it  appears  thus :  — 

"  Or  at  the  least,  so  long  as  brain  and  heart 
Have  faculty  by  nature  to  subsist, 
Till  each  to  raz'd  oblivion  yield  his  part 
Of  thee,  thy  record  never  can  be  m'iss'd." 

Son.  cxxii. 

It  must  have  suggested  the  imagery  of  these  lines :  — 

"  When  time  is  old  and  hath  forgot  itself, 
When  water-drops  have  worn  the  stones  of  Troy, 
And  blind  oblivion  swallow'd  cities  up, 
And  mighty  States  characterless  are  grated 
To  dusty  nothing."  —  Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  the  careful  student  will  discover  numerous  and  very 
significant  traces  of  this  strangeness  and  darkness  of  ig- 


462  REMEMBRANCE  AND   OBLIVION. 

norance,  this  sequestration  of  the  tabernacle,  and  these 

subtle   doctrines  and  riddles  of  Lethe  and  oblivion,  and 

some  other  notable  things,  in  the  great  play  of  "  Troilus  and 

Cressida  " ;  of  which  a  few  instances  only  may  be  specially 

noticed :  — 

"  Cal.  Appear  it  to  your  mind, 

That,  through  the  sight  I  bear  in  things  to  Jove, 
I  have  abandon' d  Troy,  left  my  possession, 
Incurr'd  a  traitor's  name ;  exposed  myself, 
From  certain  and  possess'd  conveniences, 
To  doubtful  fortunes :  sequestering  from  me  all 
That  time,  acquaintance,  custom,  and  condition, 
Made  tame  and  most  familiar  to  my  nature ; 
And  here,  to  do  you  service,  am  become 
As  new  into  the  world,  strange,  unacquainted." 

Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Ulysses,  Agamemnon  and  the  princes 
all  "  put  on  a  form  of  strangeness  "as  a  trick  upon  Achil- 
les to  humble  his  pride;  and  Achilles  discourses  very 
sagely,  thus :  — 

"  Achil.  This  is  not  strange,  Ulysses. 

The  beauty  that  is  borne  here  in  the  face, 
The  bearer  knows  not,  but  commends  itself 
To  others'  eyes :  nor  doth  the  eye  itself 
(That  most  pure  spirit  of  sense)  behold  itself, 
Not  going  from  itself;  but  eye  to  eye  oppos'd 
Salutes  each  other  with  each  other's  form : 
For  speculation  turns  not  to  itself, 
Till  it  hath  travell'd,  and  is  married 1  there 
Where  it  may  see  itself:  this  is  not  strange  at  all." 

Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

This  seems  to  be  very  much  like  that  "  marriage  of  the 
human  mind  to  the  universe,"  in  which  the  divine  goodness 
was  to  be  "  bridesmaid." 

"  Ulys.    I  do  not  strain  at  the  position,  — 
It  is  familiar,  —  but  at  the  author's  drift; 

*  So  read  the  Folio  and  Quarto ;  but  Mr.  White,  with  Singer,  adopting 
Collier's  forgery  on  the  Folio  of  1632,  substitutes  the  word  mirror'd; 
which  I  think  he  would  not  have  done,  if  he  had  understood  the  profound 
metaphysical  meaning  of  Bacon's  "  marriage  "  of  the  mind  to  things,  and 
his  use  of  the  word ;  for,  that  the  true  reading  is  married,  as  the  Baconian 
sense  requires,  I  have  no  doubt.    See  White's  Shakes.,  IX.,  Notes,  155. 


REMEMBRANCE  AND  OBLIVION.  463 

Who  in  his  circumstance  expressly  proves, 

That  no  man  is  the  lord  of  anything, 

(Though  in  and  of  him  there  be  much  consisting,) 

Till  he  communicate  his  parts  to  others : 

Nor  doth  he  himself  know  them  for  aught 

Till  he  behold  them  form'd  in  th'  applause 

Where  they  're  extended ;  who,  like  an  arch,  reverberates 

The  voice  again ;  or  like  a  gate  of  steel 

Fronting  the  sun,  receives  and  renders  back 

His  figure  and  his  heat."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

"  It  is  an  excellent  invention,"  says  Bacon,  expounding 
the  fable  of  Pan,  "  that  Pan,  or  the  world,  is  said  to  make 
choice  of  Echo  only  above  all  other  speeches  or  voices  for 
his  wife ;  for  that  alone  is  true  philosophy  which  doth  faith- 
fully render  the  very  words  of  the  world ;  and  it  is  written 
no  otherwise  than  the  world  doth  dictate,  it  being  nothing 
else  but  the  image  and  reflection  thereof,  not  adding  any- 
thing of  its  own,  but  only  iterates  and  resounds  "  ;  —  \Iterat 
et  resonat"~]  —  which  may  just  as  well  be  translated  renders 
back  and  reverberates.  And  this  subtle  doctrine  of  rever- 
beration and  echo,  as  well  as  the  marriage  of  the  mind  to 
the  universe,  must  needs  go  into  the  piece,  though  the  verse 
should  halt  for  it     Again  Ulysses  continues  :  — 

"  Ulys.  A  strange  fellow  here 

Writes  me,  that  man  —  how  dearly  ever  parted, 
How  much  in  having,  or  without  or  in  — 
Cannot  make  boast  to  have  that  which  he  hath, 
Nor  feels  not  what  he  owes,  but  by  reflection ; 
As  when  his  virtues  shining  upon  others 
Heat  them,  and  they  retort  that  heat  again  .    1 

To  the  first  giver."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

After  this  touch  of  sequestration,  strangeness,  marriage 
of  the  mind  to  things,  or  of  Pan  to  Echo,  and  this  rever- 
beration and  reflection  of  the  world's  image,  he  proceeds  to 
fold  up  and  veil,  "  as  with  a  drawn  curtain,"  his  doctrine 
of  oblivion,  thus  :  — 

"  Achil.  What!  are  my  deeds  forgot? 

Ulys.    Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  at  his  back, 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion,  — 


464  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

A  great-siz'd  monster  of  ingratitudes : 

Those  scraps  are  good  deeds  past;  which  are  devour'd 

As  fast  as  they  are  made,  forgot  as  soon 

As  done.     Perseverance,  dear  my  lord, 

Keeps  honour  bright :  to  have  done,  is  to  hang 

Quite  out  of  fashion,  like  a  rusty  mail 

In  monumental  mockery."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

And  the  discourse  winds  up  thus  :  — 

"  For  Time  is  like  a  fashionable  host, 
That  slightly  shakes  his  parting  guest  by  the  hand, 
And  with  his  arms  outstretch' d,  as  he  would  fly, 
Grasps-in  the  new  comer."  — Act  III.  Sc.  3: 

And  again,  thus  :  — 

"  Agam Understand  more  clear, 

What 's  past,  and  what 's  to  come,  is  strew'd  with  husks 
And  formless  ruin  ef  oblivion."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  5. 

The  verdict  of  the  Shakespeare  Society  upon  the  whole 
traditional  biography  of  William  Shakespeare  is,  that  he 
was  a  jovial  actor  and  manager,  not  much  differing  from 
other  actors  and  managers.  "  I  cannot  marry  this  fact  to 
his  verse,"  says  the  learned  critic  and  philosopher.  No ; 
nor  anybody  else.  This  marriage  of  mind  to  the  universe, 
this  deep  river  of  Lethe,  running  as  well  above  ground  as 
below,  this  perpetual  flux  of  remembrance  and  oblivion,  in 
which  all  that  appears  is  like  the  foam  on  the  roaring 
waterfall,  every  instant  born,  and  every  instant  dead,  living 
only  in  the  flow,  —  these  subtle  riddles  running  underneath 
the  two  writings,  —  will  marry  to  nothing  but  the  truth  of 
Nature,  or  to  the  prose  and  verse  of  Francis  Bacon  :  — 

"  Take  the  instant  way; 
For  honour  travels  in  a  strait  so  narrow, 
Where  one  but  goes  abreast." 

§    10.   MIRACLES   AND   IMMORTALITY. 

With  the  skill  of  a  god  to  conceal  what  it  may  be  the 
glory  of  a  king  to  find  out,  and  with  infinite  art  and  beauty, 
the  deep-seeing  genius  of  Goethe  endeavors  to  shadow 
forth  the  manner  in  which  the  myths  of  tradition  have 


MIRACLES  AND   IMMORTALITY.  465 

grown  into  miracles  of  divine  revelation  ;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  by  sounding  through  the  latest  depths  of  science,  to 
exhibit  all  Nature  as  no  less  than  miraculous.  With  the 
aid  of  science  and  the  keys  of  Kant,  more  potent  than  the 
keys  of  St  Peter,  he  was  able  to  unlock  and  explore  the 
inner  secrets  of  the  universe,  and  to  attain  to  that  "  wit 
of  elevation  situate  as  upon  a  cliff,"  where  Plato,  Bacon, 
Leibnitz,  Berkeley,  and  the  like  of  them,  had  stood  more  or 
less  clearly  before  him,  upon  that  "  topmost  summit "  which 
affords  "  room  only  for  a  single  person  "  '  in  an  age,  and 

"  Where  one  but  goes  abreast." 

In  like  manner,  Bacon  has  much  to  say  of  this  uppermost 
height  and  narrow  strait :  — 

"  Is  there  any  such  happiness  as  for  a  man's  mind  to  be  raised  above  the 
confusion  of  things,  where  he  may  have  the  prospect  of  the  order  of  nature 
and  the  errours  of  men  ?  " 

And  again  he  says :  "  Science  rightly  interpreted  is  a 
knowledge  of  things  through  their  causes  " ;  and  that  knowl- 
edge, he  continues,  "  constantly  expands  and  by  gradual 
and  successive  concatenation  rises,  as  it  were,  to  the  very 
loftiest  parts  of  nature  "  ;  but  "  the  man,  who,  in  the  very 
outset  of  his  inquiries,  lays  firm  hold  of  certain  fixed  prin- 
ciples in  the  science,  and  with  immovable  reliance  upon 
them,  disentangles  (as  he  will  with  little  effort)  what  he 
handles,  if  he  advances  steadily  onward,  not  flinching  out 
of  excess  either  of  self-confidence,  or  of  self-distrust,  from 
the  object  of  his  pursuit,"  —  if  he  has  but  courage  and 
seeking  faints  not,  —  may  "  mount  gradually  "  and  "  climb 
by  regular  succession  the  height  of  things  like  so  many 
tops  of  mountains."  Lear's  philosopher  standing  on  the 
top  of  this  same  high  cliff,  and  looking  into  the  abysmal 
depths  below,  exclaims :  — 

"  How  fearful, 
And  dizzy  't  is  to  cast  one's  eyes  so  low." 

i  Carlyle's  Wilkelm  Meisler's  Travels,  ch.  xiv. 
30 


466  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

And  the  blind  Gloster,  after  the  fearful  leap  had  been 
taken,  though  "  ten  masts  at  each  "  made  not  "  the  altitude  " 
which  he  "  perpendicularly  fell,"  was  yet  not  clearly  certain 
whether  he  had  "  fallen  or  no " ;  but  one  thing  he  did 
certainly  know,  the  fiend  was  gone  :  — 

"  Therefore,  thou  happy  father, 
Think  that  the  clearest  gods,  who  make  them  honours 
Of  men's  impossibilities,  have  preserv'd  thee." 

And  so  he  learned  the  lesson  :  — 

"  I  do  remember  now :  henceforth  I  '11  bear 
Affliction,  till  it  do  cry  out  itself 

'  Enough,  enough  '  /  and  die.     That  thing  you  speak  of, 
I  took  it  for  a  man ;  often  't  would  say, 
'  The  fiend,  the  fiend'' :  he  led  me  to  that  place,"  — 

Act  IV.  Sc.  6. 

that  height  above  the  confusion  of  things,  whence  the  fall 
is  so  deep,  perpendicularly  down,  to  him,  who  shall  be  too 
blind  to  see  and  keep  his  step,  or  be  unable  to  distinguish 
a  man  from  a  visionary  personification  of  evil ;  or  who  has 
no  way,  and  therefore  wants  no  eyes,  having  stumbled  when 
he  saw  ;  but  to  the  open  eyes  of  the  wise  man  and  the  seer, 
it  is  the  clear  safe  sunshine  of  the  empyrean,  and  the 
highest  happiness  of  a  human  soul,  wherein  men's  impos- 
sibilities become  divine  possibilities :  that  is  to  say,  if  he 
shall,  with  Bacon,  deeply  study  and  "  intentively  observe 
the  appetences  of  matter  and  the  most  universal  passions, 
which  are  in  either  globe  exceeding  potent,  and  transver- 
berate  the  universal  nature  of  things,  he  shall  receive  clear 
information  concerning  celestial  matters  from  the  things 
seen  here  with  us " ; 1  as  when  the  veil  of  wildness  was 
lifted  from  Prince  Hal  as  he  became  more  and  more 
crescive  in  his  faculty,  and  (as  King  Henry  V.)  became 
■  a  true  lover  of  the  Holy  Church,"  and 

"  Consideration,  like  an  angel,  came 
And  whipp'd  the  offending  Adam  out  of  him, 

i  Works  (Mont),  XVI.,  Note  22. 


MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY.  467 

Leaving  his  body  as  a  paradise 

T'  envelop  and  contain  celestial  spirits." 

Henry  V.  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

And  he  must  proceed  upon  those  physical  reasons  "  which 
make  inquiry  into  the  universal  appetites  and  passions  of 
matter,  and  the  simple  and  genuine  motions  of  bodies. 
For  upon  these  wings  we  ascend  most  safely  to  these 
celestial  material  substances."  *  In  short,  he  must  be  able 
not  only  to  see  through  this  globe,  but  even  to  penetrate 
"  the  globe  above."  2    It  was  just  so,  in  the  "  Lear  "  :  — 

"  Old  Man.    Alack,  sir !  you  cannot  see  your  way. 

Glos.    I  have  no  way,  and  therefore  want  no  eyes: 
I  stumbled  when  I  saw.8    Full  oft  't  is  seen, 
Our  means  secure  us;  and  our  mere  defects 
Prove  our  commodities 

Edg.    ....    Bless  thee,  master ! 

Glos.    Is  that  the  naked  fellow? 

Old  M.  Ay,  my  lord. 

Glos.    Then,  pry'thee,  get  thee  gone.    If,  for  my  sake, 
Thou  wilt  o'ertake  us,  hence  a  mile  or  twain, 
I'  the  way  to  Dover,  do  it  for  ancient  love; 
And  bring  some  covering  for  this  naked  soul, 
Whom  I  '11  entreat  to  lead  me.    .     .    . 
Here,  take  this  purse,  thou  whom  the  Heaven's  plagues 
Have  humbled  to  all  strokes :  that  I  am  wretched, 
Makes  thee  the  happier:  — Heavens,  deal  so  still! 
Let  the  superfluous  and  lust-dieted  man, 
That  slaves  your  ordinance,  that  will  not  see 
Because  he  doth  not  feel,  feel  your  power  quickly; 
So  distribution  shall  undo  excess, 
And  each  man  have  enough.  —  Dost  thou  know  Dover  ? 

Edg.    A j%  master. 

Glos.    There  is  a  cliff,  whose  high  and  bending  head 
Looks  fearfully  in  the  confined  deep : 
Bring  me  but  to  the  very  brim  of  it, 
And  I  '11  repair  the  misery  thou  dost  bear, 
With  something  rich  about  me :  from  that  place 
I  shall  no  leading  need. 

Edg.  Give  me  thy  arm : 

Poor  Tom  shall  lead  thee."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

i  Works  (Boston),  VIII.  497. 

*  Speech,  Works  (Phil.),  II.  274. 

8  Soph.  Antigone,  1341-3;  (Ed.  Tyrannus,  1334-5. 


468  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

This  Gloster  is  on  the  road  that  conducts  the  traveller 
"  to  places  precipitous  and  impassable  "  ;  but  once  arrived 
at  the  brink  of  the  precipice,  he  will  need  no  further  lead- 
ing from  fiend  or  philosopher ;  for,  at  that  point,  a  man 
shall  rise,  or  fall,  by  his  own  weight  in  the  universal  scheme 
of  things.  And  when  he  has  ceased  to  swear  by  devil,  or 
by  demigod,  he  will  be  ready  to  exclaim,  with  Gloster  :  — 

"  0  you  mighty  gods ! 
This  world  I  do  renounce."  —  Act  1 V.  Sc.  6. 

For,  this  height  is  "  above  tempests,  always  clear  and 
calm  ;  a  hill  of  the  goodliest  discovery  that  man  can  have, 
being  a  prospect  upon  all  the  errours  and  wanderings  of 
the  present  and  former  times.  Yea,  in  some  cliff,  it  leadeth 
the  eye  beyond  the  horizon  of  time,  and  giveth  no  obscure 
divination  of  times  to  come."  Surely,  this  Lear  was  written 
by  a  man,  who  was,  as  Bacon  says  of  Solomon,  "  truly  one 
of  those  clearest  burning  lamps,  whereof  himself  speaketh, 
in  another  place,  when  he  saith,  The  spirit  of  man  is  as  the 
lamp  of  God,  wherewith  he  searcheth  all  inwardness."  Heming 
and  Condell  say,  in  the  Preface  to  the  Folio,  speaking  for 
the  author,  that  they  would  "  leave  you  to  others  of  his 
friends,  whom,  if  you  need,  can  be  your  guides :  if  you 
need  them  not,  you  can  lead  yourselves  and  others."  Doubt- 
less the  writer  of  this  well  knew,  that  there  was  a  height 
of  human  culture,  from  which  the  reader  would  "  no  lead- 
ing need,"  —  being  himself  one  of  those 

"  clearest  gods,  who  make  them  honours 
Of  men's  impossibilities." 

And  it  is  further  not  improbable  that  Gloster's  idea  of 
precipitating  himself  over  the  cliff  of  Dover  was  partly 
suggested  by  the  story,  which  Bacon  relates  in  his  "  Exper- 
ment  Solitary  touching  flying  in  the  Air,"  thus :  "  It  is 
reported  that  amongst  the  Leucadians,  in  ancient  time, 
upon  a  superstition,  they  did  use  to  precipitate  a  man  from 
a  high  cliff  into  the  sea ;  tying  about  him  with  strings,  at 


MIRACLES  AND   IMMORTALITY.  469 

some  distance,  many  fowls  ;  and  fixing  unto  his  body  divers 
feathers,  spread,  to  break  the  fall." x 

Again,  says  the  Essay  on  Death :  "  The  soul,  having 
shaken  off  her  flesh,  doth  then  set  up  for  herself,  and  con- 
temning things  that  are  under,  shows  what  Finger  hath 
enforced  her."  This  rather  singular  metaphorical  use  of 
the  word  finger  makes  its  appearance  again  in  the  Cymbe- 
line,  thus  :  — 

"  Sooth.    The  fingers  of  the  powers  above  do  tune 
The  harmony  of  this  peace."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

And  Hamlet,  considering  of  the  subject,  very  much  after 
the  manner  of  both  Plato  and  Bacon,  soliloquizes  thus: — 

"  To  be,  or  not  to  be ;  that  is  the  question :  — 
Whether  't  is  nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer 
The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune ; 
Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles, 
And  by  opposing  end  them  ?  —  To  die :  —  to  sleep,  — 
No  more :  and,  by  a  sleep,  to  say  we  end 
The  heart-ache,  and  the  thousand  natural  shocks 
That  flesh  is  heir  to,  —  't  is  a  consummation 
Devoutly  to  be  wish'd.    To  die,  —  to  sleep:  — 
To  sleep !  perchance  to  dream :  —  ay,  there  's  the  rub ; 
For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may  come, 
When  we  have  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil, 
Mint  give  us  pause."  —  Act  111.  Sc.  1. 

And  when  he  comes  to  his  sudden  end,  which  Horatio 
announces  "  to  the  yet  unknowing  world  "  as  an  upshot — 

"  Of  carnal,  bloody,  and  unnatural  acts, 
Of  accidental  judgments,  casual  slaughters, 
Of  deaths  put  on  by  cunning  and  forc'd  cause, 
And,  in  this  upshot,  purposes  mistook 
Fall'n  on  the  inventors'  heads,"  — 

his  last  words  are,  — 

"The  rest  is  silence." 

Thus  ended  the  pause  ;  and  in  such  manner  as  to  leave 
room  for  doubt,  whether  his  final  conclusion  may  not  have 
been  something  like  that  of  the  Socratic  poet,  Euripides, 
when  he  says  :  — 

l  Natural  History,  §  886. 


470  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

"  The  souls  of  dying  men  indeed  live  not, 
But  surely  have  immortal  knowledge  all, 
Into  th'  immortal  ether  falling:  "  —  Helene,  1014-6. 

or,  as  in  Clarence's  dream,  — 

"  but  still  the  envious  flood 
Stopp'd  in  my  soul,  and  would  not  let  it  forth 
To  find  the  empty,  vast,  and  wand'ring  air." 

Richard  III.,  Act  I.  8c.  4 

or,  as  again,  in  the  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  thus :  — 

"  Claudio.  Death  is  a  fearful  thing. 

Isab.    And  shamed  life  a  hateful. 

Clau.    Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  and  to  rot; 
This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod ;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  region  of  thick-ribb'd  ice; 
To  be  imprison'd  in  the  viewless  winds 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendent  world;  or  to  be,  worse  than  worst, 
Of  those  that  lawless  and  incertain  thoughts 
Imagine,  howling !  —  't  is  too  horrible. 
The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly  life, 
That  age,  ache,  penury,  and  imprisonment 
Can  lay  on  nature,  is  a  paradise 
To  what  we  fear  of  death."  —  Act  111.  Sc.  1. 

But  silence  is  not  necessarily  death  for  the  soul.  That 
the  soul  may  still  live,  after  the  dissolution  of  the  body,  on 
the  soundest  logical  and  scientific  principles,  must  be  con- 
sidered as  metaphysically  possible  ;  but  if  so,  necessarily 
in  time  and  space,  and  therefore  necessarily  under  some 
form  of  its  own,  with  or  without  a  bodily  investment,  how- 
ever thin  and  ethereal  it  may  be,  and  in  some  place  where- 
soever in  the  boundless  universe  of  God.  And  it  must 
have  continuity  in  time,  which  may  have  an  end,  or  be 
eternal.  But  identity  with  the  infinite  soul  must  be  the 
extinction  and  end  of  the  finite  soul.  The  indestructibility 
of  the  fundamental  essence  of  the  soul  is  one  thing ;  that  of 
the  finite  soul,  as  such,  is  quite  another  thing.  In  view  of  the 
entire  course  of  Providence,  as  it  may  be  gathered  from  the 


MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY.  471 

scientific  history  of  the  past  and  present  universe,  sacred 
scriptures,  all  the  records  of  tradition,  and  what  little  we 
can  read 

"In  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy,"  — 

or  in  "  the  infinite  and  secret  operations  of  Nature,"  accord- 
ing to  Bacon's  "  Cogitations  concerning  Human  Knowl- 
edge,"—  on  all  that  we  can  get  to  see  and  know  of  the 
ends  of  Providence  in  the  universal  order,  and  according 
to  what  we  are  able  to  discover  and  understand  and  com- 
prehend of  the  total  plan  and  probable  continuation  thereof 
in  the  future  purposes  of  the  Creator,  we  may  believe  with 
Plato,  Jesus,  Paul,  Cicero,  Boethius,  Bacon,  and  many 
others  of  the  most  learned  and  wise,  greatest  and  best,  and 
most  divine  men  of  all  ages,  that  the  immortality,  that  is, 
the  eternal  continuity  of  the  soul,  in  time,  is  in  the  highest 
degree  probable  ;  but  for  the  fact,  whether  any  given  soul 
will  be  thus  immortal  or  not,  —  that  must,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  thing,  rest  in  the  divine  will  of  the  Eternal 
Father,  in  the  future  course  of  his  providence.  Therefore 
must  it  be  forever  impossible  to  be  foreknown  to  God,  or 
revealed  to  man,  for  certain  fact  And  whether  any  finite 
soul  will  be  continued  in  that  eternally  continuing  provi- 
dence as  a  fit  part  of  the  divine  plan,  —  whether  it  will  be 
saved  or  lost,  remembered  or  forgotten,  —  may  depend,  at 
last,  very  much  on  the  fact,  when  the  time  shall  come,  or 
indeed  at  any  time,  whether  such  soul  be  worth  remem- 
bering and  saving,  or  not :  — 

"  How  would  you  be 
If  He,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment,  should 
But  judge  you  as  you  are  ?    O,  think  on  that ! " 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  II.  3c.  2. 

From  this  same  elevation,  Goethe's  wanderer  in  the 
mountains  descends  all  at  once  into  a  microscopic  com- 
munity of  common  human  affairs ;  or  sees,  in  a  sort  of 
magical  perspective,  a  world  of  transactions  in  a  small  box ; 
or  looks  across  a  vast  chasm,  and  beholds  a  fellow-being  so 


472  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

far  removed,  that  communication  would  seem  to  be,  as  it 
were,  between  two  souls  in  different  worlds, 

"  Like  one  that  stands  upon  a  promontory, 
And  spies  a  far-off  shore  where  he  would  tread, 
Wishing  his  foot  were  equal  with  his  eye." 

3  Hen.  VI.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

So  intent,  for  the  moment,  was  this  wanderer  on  his  dear 
object,  that  he  was  just  on  the  point  of  jumping  sheer  over 
the  gulf  between,  when  a  wiser  companion,  seizing  him  by 
the  skirts  of  conscience,  drew  him  back.  Macbeth,  looking 
another  way,  hesitated  and  considered,  — 

"  that  but  this  blow 
Might  be  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  here, 
But  here,  upon  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time,  — 
We  'd  jump  the  life  to  come."  — Act  I.  Sc.  7. 

With  Goethe  as  with  Bacon,  raised  upon  this  high  cliff, 
all  the  miracles  of  tradition,  verbal  or  written,  sink  into 
painted  walls  and  tapestries  for  the  edification  of  children 
of  the  mountains,  with  their  new  Joseph  and  Virgin  Mary, 
in  comparison  with  the  boundless  miracle  of  the  actual 
universe,  that  lay  an  "  open  secret "  to  them,  though  for  the 
most  part  invisible  to  the  eyes  of  men  in  general.  Says 
Bacon  :  "  I  had  rather  believe  all  the  fables  of  the  legend, 
and  the  Talmud,  and  the  Alcoran,  than  that  this  univer- 
sal frame  is  without  a  mind ;  and  therefore  God  never 
wrought  miracle  to  convince  atheism,  because  his  ordinary 
works  convince  it."1  But,  he  continues  again,  there  were 
some  also  that  stayed  not  here  ;  but  went  further,  and  held 
that  if  the  spirit  of  man,  whom  they  call  the  microcosm,  do 
give  a  fit  touch  to  the  spirit  of  the  world,  by  strong  imagi- 
nations and  beliefs,  it  might  command  nature  ;  for  Para- 
celsus and  some  darksome  authors  of  magic  do  ascribe  to 
imagination  exalted,  the  power  of  miracle-working  faith. 
"With  these  vast  and  bottomless  follies  men  have  been  in 
part  entertained."  Yea ;  and  so  they  still  are,  vastly,  and 
i  Nat.  Hist,  Works  (Mont.),  IV.  488. 


MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY.  473 

in  many  respects  most  perniciously  entertained ;  for  the 
truth  is,  as  Bacon  declares  in  his  Sacred  Meditations,  thus : 
"  Now  every  miracle  is  a  new  creation,  and  not  according 
to  the  first  creation  " ;  and  he  says,  again,  "  as  for  the  nar- 
rations touching  the  prodigies  and  miracles  of  religions, 
they  are  either  not  true,  or  not  natural ;  and  therefore,  im- 
pertinent for  the  story  of  nature."  Very  like  was  the 
opinion  of  Von  Hardenberg,  that  "  miracles,  as  contradic- 
tions of  Nature,  are  amathematical.  But  there  are  no 
miracles  in  that  sense.  What  we  so  term  is  intelligible 
precisely  by  means  of  mathematics  ;  for  nothing  is  miracu- 
lous to  mathematics  "  ;  —  that  is,  to  the  science  of  the  laws 
of  creative  thought.  So  Bacon  says,  again,  "  that  kings 
ruled  by  their  laws,  as  God  did  by  the  laws  of  nature,  and 
ought  rarely  to  put  in  use  their  supreme  prerogative,  as  God 
doth  his  power  of  working  miracles."1  Nothing  but  the 
power  of  Heaven  could  command  nature;  as  when  King 
Henry's  conscience 

—  "  first  receiv'd  a  tenderness, 
Scruple,  and  prick,  in  certain  speeches  utter'd 
By  th'  Bishop  of  Bayonne,"  — 

and  the  question,  whether  his  daughter  were  legitimate, 

entered  the  region  of  his  heart  "  with  a  splitting  power," 

he  is  made  to  say,  — 

"  First,  methought, 
I  stood  not  in  the  smile  of  Heaven  ;  who  had 
Commanded  nature,  that  my  lady's  womb, 
If  it  conceiv'd  a  male  child  by  me,  should 
Do  no  more  offices  of  life  to  't  than 
The  grave  does  to  the  dead."  —  Hen.  VIII.,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

Nevertheless,  Bacon's  elevation  to  the  woolsack  was,  in 
the  style  of  popular  eloquence,  at  that  day,  as  seen  in  his 
speeches,  "  the  immediate  work  of  God  "  and  the  King,  and 
"  their  actions  were  no  ordinary  effects,  but  extraordinary 
miracles ;  "  and  the  plays  adopt  the  same  style  :  "  Exceed- 
ing miracles ! " —  "  A  most  most  high  miracle  !  "  —  though 
l  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Book  II. 


474  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

even  a  Bishop  ventures  to  say,  in  the  play,  "  miracles  are 
ceased."  And  the  idea  seems  to  have  become  so  common 
and  popular  as  to  get  into  the  comedy  of  "  All 's  Well  that 
Ends  Well,"  thus  :  — 

"Laf.  They  say  miracles  are  past;  and  we  have  our  philosophical  per- 
sons to  make  modern  and  familiar,  things  supernatural  and  causeless. 
Hence  is  it  we  make  trifles  of  terrors,  ensconcing  ourselves  into  seeming 
knowledge,  when  we  should  submit  ourselves  to  an  unknown  fear. 

Par.  Why  't  is  the  rarest  argument  of  wonder  that  hath  shot  out  in  our 
latter  times. 

Ber.    And  so  't  is. 

Laf     To  be  relinquish'd  of  the  artists,  — 

Par.     So  I  say;  both  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus. 

Laf.    Of  all  the  learned  and  authentic  fellows  — 

Par.    Right,  so  I  say. 

Laf.    That  gave  him  out  incurable  — 

Par.     Why,  there  'tis;  so  say  I  too. 

Laf.    Not  to  be  help'd, — 

Par.     Right  as  't  were  a  man  assur'd  of  a  — 

Laf.     Uncertain  life  and  sure  death. 

Par.    Just,  you  say  well ;  so  would  I  have  said. 

Laf.     I  may  truly  say  it  is  a  novelty  to  the  world. 

Par.  It  is  indeed :  if  you  will  have  it  in  shewing,  you  shall  read  it  in  — 
What  do  you  call  these  ?  — 

Laf.    A  shewing  of  a  heavenly  effect  in  an  earthly  actor. 

Par.     That 's  it:  I  would  have  said  the  very  same. 

Laf.     Why  your  dolphin  is  not  lustier:  'fore  me  I  speak  in  respect  — 

Par.  Nay,  't  is  strange,  't  is  very  strange ;  that  is  the  brief  and  tedious 
of  it ;  and  he  's  of  a  most  facinorous  spirit,  that  will  not  acknowledge  it  to  be 
the  — 

Laf.    Very  hand  of  heaven."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

And  as  early  as  1594,  we  find  the  philosopher  writing  a 
Masque  for  the  Christmas  Revels  of  Gray's  Inn,  in  which 
he  makes  the  second  counsellor,  "  advising  the  study  of 
philosophy,"  address  himself  to  the  Prince  of  Purpoole  in 
these  words :  — 

"  Thus,  when  your  Excellency  shall  have  added  depth  of  knowledge  to 
the  fineness  of  your  spirits  and  greatness  of  your  power,  — 
["  Or  those  that  with  the  fineness  of  their  souls 

By  reason  guide  his  execution."  —  Tro.  and  Ores.,  Act  I.  Sc.  3.] 

then  indeed  shall  you  be  a  Trismegistus ;  and  then  when  all  other  miracles 
and  wonders  shall  cease  by  reason  that  you  shall  have  discovered  their  natu- 
ral causes,  yourself  shall  be  left  the  only  miracle  and  wonder  of  the  world." 


MIRACLES   AND   IMMORTALITY.  475 

The  fault  still  is,  not  so  much  in  inflating  plain  things 
into  marvels,  or  in  making  modern  and  familiar,  things  that 
are  supernatural  and  causeless,  as  in  attempting  to  con- 
ceive of  things  both  natural  and  supernatural,  not  only  as 
not  naturally  caused  at  all,  but  as  supernaturally  caused 
in  a  sense  contradictory  to  all  reason,  the  known  laws  of 
thought,  the  very  nature  of  things,  and  what  we  know  of 
the  divine  nature  and  the  order  of  divine  providence  in 
the  universe ;  as  for  instance,  considerable  question  is 
made,  as  well  by  men  of  science  as  theologians,  of  what 
is  called  the  Development  Theory  as  against  various  theo- 
logical theories  of  the  Six  Days  Works  :  whereas  the 
true  theory  might  be  better  stated  thus :  The  whole  is, 
visibly,  to  the  eye  of  the  philosopher,  a  compound  order  of 
development,  evolution,  and  new  creation,  in  radiated  linear 
branching  descent,  in  directions  in  time  from  centre  to 
circumference,  on  which  is  the  distribution  in  space  at  a 
spheroidal  right  angle  to  a  universal  radius,  in  zoological 
provinces,  which  are  ever  carried  forward  on  the  line  of 
lapsing  time  over  changing  surfaces  in  space,  with  succes- 
sive evolution  and  continuous  new  creation  of  artistic  type 
of  form  in  the  continuous  destruction  and  extinction  of  old 
types  of  form  (individuals,  species,  genera),  giving,  coor- 
dinated always  in  time  and  space  (which,  we  must  remem- 
ber, are  merely  laws  of  thought  creative  or  destructive),  in 
variable  succession  of  creative  progression  and  destructive 
retrogression,  under  perpetual  geological  oscillation  and 
almost  constant  change  of  physical  condition,  under  the 
laws  of  physics  (also  those  same  laws  of  thought  creative  or 
destructive)  —  sea,  shore,  and  land ;  water,  air,  earth,  and 
tree  ;  hot,  tropical,  temperate,  and  cold  ;  —  first,  the  funda- 
mental unity  of  type  in  the  primordial  cell,  and  thence  the 
kingdom,  sub-kingdoms,  branches,  classes,  orders,  families, 
genera,  species,  individuals,  —  unity  and  difference,  —  ac- 
cording to  the  Transcendental  Architectonic  of  the  Divine 
Idea ;  at  once,  a  natural  and  a  supernatural  order,  the  two 


476  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

being  so  far  one  and  identical ;  for  it  is  a  work  of  thought 
in  the  order  of  "immortal  providence."  And  so  of  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  and  indeed  of  all  forms  of  matter, 
down  to  the  last  atoms  of  the  atomic  theories  ;  and  thence 
further  on,  with  the  metaphysician  and  philosopher,  who  is 
able  to  see  through  physics  into  metaphysics,  quite  through 
the  last  forms  and  modes  of  substance,  —  light,  heat,  elec- 
tricities, motions,  powers,  —  into  the  totality  of  all  sub- 
stance as  the  Divine  Power  of  Thought  itself  in  activity 
by  the  necessary  fact  of  existence,  artistically  thinking, 
creating,  the  universe ;  and  who  is  able  to  grasp  all  that, 
reducing  at  once  the  greatest,  of  all  marvels  to  a  plain 
thing.  And  so,  whether  the  phenomena  of  creation  be  to 
be  called  natural  and  caused,  or  supernatural  and  causeless, 
depends  mainly  on  this  :  whether  we  look  at  it  from  the 
physical  or  the  metaphysical  side,  and  with  the  natural  or 
supernatural  eye.  In  reality,  it  is  all  the  same  thing  in 
either  case  ;  —  "a  natural  perspective  that  is,  and  is 
not " ;  *  < —  or  like  "  perspectives  that  show  things  inward 
when  they  are  but  paintings " ; l  except  that  the  whole 
materialism  of  dead  substratum,  and  a  great  deal  of  the 
old  theological  fog  and  mere  moonshine,  should  be  cleared 
at  once  from  our  minds  and  swept  sheer  off  into  oblivion, 
whither  it  is  fast  going,  and  there  an  end  of  it ;  for,  "  as 
the  poet  said  of  the  creation  of  the  world,"  according  to 
Bacon's  speech  :  "  Materiam  noli  queer  ere,  nulla  fuit" 

This  dark  cloud  of  superstition  may  never  be  entirely 
swept  away.  It  is  as  old  as  the  human  race  ;  and,  in  vari- 
ous changing  shapes,  it  has  hung  over  mankind  like  an  in- 
curable incubus,  laden  for  the  most  part  with  awful  terrors 
and  diabolical  horrors,  and  with  severe  but  perhaps  neces- 
sary discipline,  for  the  poor  children  of  men.  And  it 
seems  destined  to  be  as  perpetual  as  that  dismal  cloud-belt 
that  perennially  overhangs  the  equatorial  ocean.  But  the 
skilful  navigator,  if  he  cannot  disperse  the  cloud,  may  yet 
l  Nat.  Hist. 


MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY.  477 

escape  from  underneath  its  dark  and  tearful  shadow.  He 
will  inevitably  sleep  in  equatorial  dead  calms,  or  dance  his 
weary  life  out  in  the  lugubrious  doldrums  of  the  Horse- 
Latitudes,  if  he  do  not  Happier  winds  may  take  him 
more  prosperously  on  his  life-voyage,  if  he  can  but  reach 
them  ;  and,  if  he  can  also  keep  clear  of  the  Arctic  night  of 
un metaphysical  physics  and  orthodox  theology,  he  may 
have  temperate  sailing,  on  an  endless  parallel,  in  the  eter- 
nal radiance  of  the  true  Pole-star  of  the  universe ;  but 
otherwise,  never. 

Nor  need  there  be  any  fear  of  anything  being  done,  in 
the  entire  universe,  without  a  cause ;  nor  that  all  mankind 
will  adopt  the  phrenologico-biology  and  perpetual-motion 
machine  theories  of  M.  Auguste  Comte,  Harriet  Martineau, 
and  George  Henry  Lewes,  nor  the  childish  vagaries  of 
dreamy  spiritual  rappers ;  at  least,  until  all  shall  have 
sunk  into  that  degree  of  intellectual  stupidity,  or  super- 
stitious folly,  wherein  the  knowledge  of  causes,  the  true 
nature  of  cause,  and  the  mode  of  that  thing  which  is  un- 
caused, is  completely  ignored,  and  all  attempt  to  know  it 
summarily  renounced.  On  the  contrary,  a  very  large  por- 
tion of  mankind  may  be  presumed  to  be  still  capable  of 
appreciating  what  Bacon  made  the  first  and  foremost  article 
of  his  plan  of  Solomon's  House,  or  a  College  of  the  Uni- 
versal Science,  thus :  —  "  The  End  of  our  Foundation  is 
the  knowledge  of  Causes,  and  secret  motions  of  things ; 
and  the  enlarging  the  bounds  of  Human  Empire  to  the 
effecting  all  things  possible  " ;  or,  as  he  says,  again,  the 
true  end  of  knowledge  "  is  a  discovery  of  all  operations  and 
possibilities  of  operations  from  immortality  (if  that  were 
possible)  to  the  meanest  mechanical  practice."  1  He  well 
knew,  that  "  in  the  entrance  of  philosophy,  when  the  second 
causes,  which  are  next  unto  the  senses,  do  offer  themselves 
to  the  mind  of  man,  if  it  dwell  and  stay  there,  it  may  in- 
duce some  oblivion  of  the  highest  cause."  There  were 
l  Valerius  Terminus. 


478  MIRACLES  AND  IMMORTALITY. 

also  to  be  in  this  Solomon's  House,  "  houses  of  deceits  of 
the  senses  ;  where  we  represent  all  manner  of  feats  of  jug- 
gling, false  apparitions,  impostures,  and  illusions ;  and  their 
fallacies.  And  surely  you  will  easily  believe  that  we  that 
have  so  many  things  truly  natural,  which  induce  admira- 
tion, could,  in  a  world  of  particulars,  deceive  the  senses,  if 
we  could  disguise  those  things,  and  labor  to  make  them 
seem  more  miraculous.    But  we  do  hate  all  impostures  and 

lies. These  are,  my  son,  the  riches  of  Solomon's 

House."  » 

1  New  AtlantU. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

SPIRITUAL  ILLUMINATION. 

Hepi  TOV  ffaiTwi'  Bacr'cAea  navr'  e<[i,  (cat  cxcieou  Cfcxa  Tratra,  <cai  iictlvo  diTtov  andv- 
ruv  tuic  koAuc  —  Concerning  the  King  of  all,  all  things  are,  and  for  his  sake  are 
all  things,  and  he  is  the  cause  of  all  the  beautiful. — Plato's  Epist.  IT.  to  Dionysius. 
"  The  first  creature  of  God,  in  the  works  of  the  days,  was  the  light  of  the  sense  ; 
the  last  was  the  light  of  reason  ;  and  his  Sabbath  work  ever  since  is  the  illumina- 
tion of  his  Spirit."  —  Bacon's  Essay  of  TYuth. 

§  1.    THE    TRUE    RELIGION. 

Benjamin  Constant,  setting  out  upon  an  investigation 
into  the  origin  and  progress  of  all  religions,  with  a  purpose 
of  showing  that  Christianity  was  only  one  of  the  many 
superstitions  of  the  world's  history,  becomes  himself  con- 
vinced that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  religion  in  itself,  rest- 
ing on  an  eternal  foundation  of  divine  truth,  and  recog- 
nized more  or  less  distinctly  in  all  phases  of  human  expe- 
rience, and  in  all  forms  of  human  society,  from  the  lowest 
barbarisms  up  to  the  highest  degree  of  civilization  ;  and 
Goethe,  no  less  learned  in  historical  criticism,  and  perhaps 
a  still  deeper  philosopher,  finds  that  there  are  at  least 
"  three  Reverences  "  and  "  one  true  Religion,"  which  stand 
upon  such  eternal  foundation.  Morell,  writing  a  philoso- 
phy of  religion,  finds,  also,  that  all  religious  opinion  and 
belief  must  come  to  man  through  his  own  reason  only  ; 
and  that  there  can  be  no  revelation  to  men  of  things  alto- 
gether above  their  comprehension.  These  and  many  other 
learned  writers  and  scholars,  both  ancient  and  modem,  take 
religion  to  be  something  universal  and  necessary,  founded 
in  the  very  nature  and  constitution  of  the  soul  of  man, 


4£0  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

wherein  he  is  made  sensible  of  his  dependence  upon  "  some 
Higher  Powers."  Lord  Bacon  had  attained  to  a  like  com- 
prehension of  the  true  nature  of  religion.  "  The  true  re- 
ligion," he  says,  "  is  built  upon  the  rock ;  the  rest  are  tossed 
upon  the  waves  of  time."  This  metaphor  appears  again  in 
the  plays  :  — 

"  Wol.  Though  perils  did 

Abound  as  thick  as  thought  could  make  them,  and 
Appear  in  forms  more  horrid,  yet  my  duty 
(As  doth  a  rock  against  the  chiding  flood) 
Should  the  approach  of  this  wild  river  break, 
And  stand  unshaken  yours."  — 

Henry  VIII.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

And  again,  thus  :  — 

"  Tit.    For  now  I  stand  as  one  upon  a  rock, 
Environ 'd  with  a  wilderness  of  sea; 
Who  marks  the  waxing  tide  grow  wave  by  wave, 
Expecting  ever  when  some  envious  surge 
Will  in  his  brinish  bowels  swallow  him." 

Tit.  And.,  Act  in.  Sc.  1. 

The  same  metaphors  upon  the  same  subject  appear  again 
in  a  letter  drafted  by  Bacon  for  Essex,  thus :  — 

"  Duty,  though  my  state  lie  buried  in  the  sands,  and  my  favours  be  cast 
upon  the  waters,  and  my  honours  be  committed  to  the  wind,  yet  standeih 
surely  built  upon  the  rock,  and  hath  been,  and  ever  shall  be,  unforced  and 
unattempted."  1 

And  in  the  same  Essay  (of  the  Vicissitude  of  Things), 
he  observes,  that  "  there  be  three  manner  of  plantation  of 
new  sects :  by  the  power  of  signs  and  miracles ;  by  the 
eloquence  and  wisdom  of  speech  and  persuasion ;  and  by 
the  sword  "  :  — 

"  Gent.  This  is  a  creature, 

Would  she  begin  a  sect,  might  quench  the  zeal 
Of  all  professors  else,  make  proselytes 
Of  who  she  but  bid  follow."  —  Win.  Tale,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Christianity  in  itself  is  perhaps  not  a  sect,  nor  any  man's 
creed  of  belief,  whether  that  of  Channing,  Edwards,  Wes- 
1  Letters  and  Life,  by  Spedding,  II.  193. 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  481 

ley,  Penn,  Cranmer,  Luther,  St  Augustine,  St  Paul,  St 
Peter,  or  even  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  nor  the  decree  of  any 
Church  council,  but  rather  the  true  religion  of  holy  men. 
It  is  not  exactly  philosophy ;  but  it  presumes  a  true  philos- 
ophy of  the  universe  to  be  already  established  in  the  mind 
of  the  true  believer.  Christianity  would  seem  to  proclaim 
the  fact  by  authority  of  miracle,  all  the  miracles  of  the 
universe,  no  less  than  some  few,  and  the  universal  revela- 
tion therein,  that  God,  the  creator  and  preserver  of  all 
created  things,  reigns  in  and  over  all  His  universe,  judges 
the  quick  and  the  dead,  and  raises,  if  He  will,  the  soul  to 
life,  light,  and  immortality.  Philosophy  unfolds  the  past 
and  present  order  of  His  providence  in  the  known  and 
knowable  universe  of  fact  and  truth,  and  endeavors  to  ex- 
plain, as  far  as  man  can  comprehend,  how  it  is  possible  for 
God  and  Nature  and  Man  to  exist  as  they  have  existed, 
and  do  in  fact  exist,  and  in  what  manner,  and  how  it  is 
conceivable  and  credible  that  He  can  create  and  destroy, 
remember  and  forget  govern,  judge,  and  make  souls  im- 
mortal. Christianity  is  religious  culture  and  worship : 
philosophy  is  the  science  of  sciences,  the  Universal  Science. 
Philosophy  is  to  Christianity  what  Plato  was  to  Jesus 
Christ.  There  must  -be  a  Plato  before  there  can  be  a 
Jesus,  and  a  philosophy  before  there  can  be  a  Christianity. 
Every  man's  Christianity  will  be  according  to  his  philos- 
ophy, whether  he  knows  it  or  not  And  when  he  has  ad- 
vanced his  philosophy  and  his  Christianity  together  to  a 
knowledge  of  God  and  His  providence  in  the  universe,  he 
will  be  sure  to  find  them  one,  —  but  two  names  for  "  the 
same  thing  more  large."  Religion  is  the  live  worship  of 
the  living  God.  "It  is  not  without  cause,"  says  Bacon, 
"  that  the  Apostle  calls  Religion  the  Rational  Worship  of 
God ; " ■  and  again  he  says,  "  As  to  seek  divinity  in  philos- 
ophy is  to  seek  the  living  amongst  the  dead,  so  to  seek  phi- 

1  De  Aug.  Scient.,  Lib.  IX. 
31 


482  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

losophy  in  divinity  is  to  seek  the  dead  amongst  the  liv 
ing":- 

"  There 's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough  hew  them  how  we  will." 

Hamlet,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

He  was  one  of  the  men,  or  rather  the  man  of  that  age, 
for  whom  "  this  approaching  and  intruding  into  God's 
secrets  and  mysteries "  had  no  terrors ;  nor,  as  it  is  even 
now  with  some,  was  he  "  unjustly  jealous  that  every  reach 
and  depth  of  knowledge,  wherewith  their  conceits  have  not 
been  acquainted,  should  be  too  high  an  elevation  of  man's 
wit,  and  a  searching  and  ravelling  too  far  into  God's 
secrets " ;  on  the  contrary,  his  spirit  was  rather  that  of 
Lear  in  the  play  :  — 

"  Lear.  So  we  '11  live, 

And  pray,  and  sing,  and  tell  old  tales,  and  laugh 
At  gilded  butterflies,  and  hear  poor  rogues 
Talk  of  Court  news ;  and  we  '11  talk  with  them  too,  — 
Who  loses  and  who  wins ;  who  's  in,  who  's  out ;  — 
And  take  upon  us  the  mystery  of  things, 
As  if  we  were  God's  spies :  and  we  '11  wear  out, 
In  a  wall'd  prison,  packs  and  sects  of  great  ones. 
That  ebb  and  flow  by  th'  moon."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

But,  in  a  Latin  fragment,  never  printed  until  lately,  he 
takes  care  to  distinguish  the  true  limits  of  sobriety  in  the 
approach  of  sense-perception  merely  to  things  divine  ;  "  for 
if  we  attempt  an  impudent  flight,  on  the  ill-glued  wings  of 
sense,  as  if  audaciously  to  explore  more  nearly  the  nature, 
ways,  will,  rule,  and  other  mysteries  of  God,  certain  downfall 
awaits  us.  The  summary  law  of  Nature,  which  is  like  the 
vertical  point  of  the  Pyramid,  in  which  all  things  come  to- 
gether into  unity,  —  this,  I  say,  and  nothing  else,  is  with- 
drawn from  the  human  intellect  ....  Nor  let  any  one 
fear  that  the  Faith  can  be  more  diametrically  opposed  by 
Sense  than  by  what  is  now  believed  by  virtue  of  divine  in- 
spiration ["  afflatus "]  ;  such  as  the  creation  of  the  world 
out  of  nothing ;  the  incarnation  of  God ;  the  resurrection 
of  the  body.     But  for  me  it  is  perfectly  clear,  that  Natural 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  483 

Philosophy,  which  is  (next  after  the  word  of  God)  the  most 
certain  remedy  for  superstition,  is  also  (what  may  seem 
wonderful)  the  most  approved  aliment  of  faith ;  and  the 
more  deeply  it  penetrates,  the  more  profoundly  is  the 
human  mind  imbued  with  religion." 1 

Allusion  is  frequently  made  in  the  plays  to  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  sea  and  the  action  of  the  moon  ;  this  was  a  new 
theory  of  the  tides,  at  that  day,  and  Bacon  had  particularly 
studied  the  subject ;  and  he  wrote  a  treatise  "  Of  the  Ebb 
and  Flow  of  the  Sea,"  in  which  the  action  of  the  moon  is 
curiously  discussed,  and  the  doctrine  laid  down  very  much 
as  in  the  play  :  — 

"  P.  Hen.  Thou  say'st  well,  and  it  holds  well,  too;  for  the  fortune  of  us 
that  are  the  moon's  men  doth  ebb  and  flow  like  the  sea ;  being  governed, 
as  the  sea  is,  by  the  moon."  —  1  Hen.  IV.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Having  lived  in  a  world-prison,  taking  all  knowledge  for 
his  province,  from  the  beginning,  when  walled  prisons  were 
not  far  off,  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  dangers  which  a  phi- 
losophical writer  had  to  incur  from  these  same  "  packs  and 
sects  of  great  ones."  They  appear  to  have  infested  all  ages  : 
Anaxagoras  had  to  flee  from  them ;  they  made  Socrates 
drink  hemlock,  and  sold  Plato  into  slavery  ;  Aristotle  had 
to  escape  through  a  back  door  into  Thessaly ;  Jesus  was 
crucified,  Bruno  burnt,  Ramus  massacred,  and  Campanella 
tortured ;  John  Selden  had  to  apologize,  and  Des  Cartes,  to 
hide  his  book ;  Spinoza  was  terribly  excommunicated,  and 
Locke  banished  ;  Kant  had  to  stalk,  Fichte,  to  resign,  and 
even  Cousin,  to  take  refuge  in  Germany.  Bacon,  remem- 
bering that  one  of  the  uses  of  poetry  was  '*  to  retire  and 
obscure  what  is  taught  or  delivered,"  and  that  "  the  secrets 
and  mysteries  of  religion,  policy,  and  philosophy  "  might  be 
involved  in  fables,  chose  a  more  cunning  way,  and  got  safely 
through  by  wearing  a  mask.  But  the  Great  Instauration 
itself,  strictly  scientific  in  character,  and  steering  as  clear  as 
possible  of  any  direct  conflict  with  them,  and  full  of  paren- 
i  Cogitaiionet,  Works  (Boston),  V.  435. 


484  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

thetical  savings  of  the  established  theologies,  even  though  it 
flew  too  high  over  men's  heads  in  general  to  be  understood 
by  them,  drew  down  on  him  some  animadversion  from  the 
current  orthodoxies  ;  so  much  so,  that  his  friend,  Mr.  Tobie 
Matthew,  deemed  it  worth  while  to  give  him  an  early- 
caution  on  that  head  ;  to  which  Bacon  replied  :  "  For  your 
caution  of  churchmen  and  church  matters,  as  for  any  im- 
pediment it  may  be  to  the  applause  and  celebrity  of  my 

work,  it  moveth  me  not But  the  truth  is,  that  I  at 

all  have  no  occasion  to  meet  them  in  any  way,  except  it  be 
as  they  will  needs  confederate  with  Aristotle,  who,  you 

know,  is  intemperately  magnified  by  the  schoolmen 

Nay,  it  doth  more  fully  lay  open,  that  the  question  between 
me  and  the  ancient  is  not  of  the  virtue  of  the  race,  but  of 
the  Tightness  of  the  way.  And  to  speak  truth,  it  is  to  the 
other  but  as  Palma  to  Pugnus,  part  of  the  same  thing  more 
large."  *  In  the  Advancement,  he  gives  a  general  view  of 
his  scheme  of  all  knowledge,  which  he  divides  into  Divinity 
and  Philosophy.  By  Divinity,  he  appears  to  have  under- 
stood, or  at  least  to  have  included  in  it,  "  Inspired  Theology," 
or  the  revealed  religion  of  the  Bible :  it  might  not  have 
been  safe  for  him  altogether  to  have  omitted  it,  at  that  day. 
This  department  of  inquiry,  however,  he  places  beyond  the 
pale  of  philosophy,  and  being  thus  summarily  disposed  of, 
it  no  longer  disturbs  his  philosophical  investigations.  In 
the  Novum  Organum,  he  ventures  to  say,  that  the  cor- 
ruption of  philosophy,  by  the  mixing  of  it  up  with  super- 
stition and  theology,  is  of  a  much  wider  extent,  and  is  most 

injurious  to  it,  both  as  a  whole  and  in  its  parts 

Against  it,  we  must  use  the  greatest  caution ;  for  the 
apotheosis  of  error  is  the  greatest  evil  of  all,  and  when 
folly  is  worshipped,  it  is,  as  it  were,  a  plague-spot  upon  the 
understanding.  Yet  some  of  the  moderns  have  indulged 
this  folly,  with  such  consummate  inconsiderateness,  that 
they  have  endeavored  to  build  a  system  of  natural  philos- 
1  Letter  to  Matthew. 


THE  TRUE  RELIGIOX.  485 

ophy  on  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  book  of  Job,  and 
other  parts  of  Scripture,  seeking  thus  "  the  dead  amongst 
the  living."  He  is  considering  the  Scriptures  here,  in  the 
popular  way,  as  the  source  of  that  living  divinity,  compared 
with  which  philosophy  is,  as  it  were,  dead  science.  Doubt- 
,  less  if  he  had  written  in  another  age,  or  even  in  this,  though 
to  a  wide  extent  still,  the  authority  of  Prophets,  Law-givers, 
Kings,  Messiahs,  Apostles,  Teachers  and  "Workers  of 
Miracles,  and  even  the  very  letter  and  text  of  what  they 
said,  or  wrote,  the  old  poetic  genesis  of  creation,  books  of 
ancient  Law,  Histories,  Chronicles,  Prophecies,  Proverbs, 
Lamentations,  Songs,  Psalms,  Gospels,  Acts,  and  Epistles, 
in  prose  and  verse,  in  Hebrew  and  Greek,  are  allowed  to 
have  more  weight,  and  are  more  devoutly  reverenced,  than 
living  divinity  itself,  — 

"  and  sweet  religion  makes 
A  rhapsody  of  words,"  — Ham.,  Act  HI.  Sc.  4. 

he  would  have  reversed  the  order  of  the  expression,  without 
changing  his  own  meaning,  and  said,  seeking  thus  the  living 
amongst  the  dead !  But  "  to  turn  religion  into  a  comedy 
or  satire  ...  is  a  thing  far  from  the  devout  reverence  of  a 
Christian  "  ;  and  so  long  as  "  the  church  is  situate  as  it  were 
tipon  a  kill,  no  man  maketh  question  of  it,  or  seeketh  to 
depart  from  it"  ;  but  "  there  be  as  well  schismaiical  fashions 
as  opinions"  and  some  appropriate  "  to  themselves  the 
names  of  zealous,  sincere,  and  reformed  ;  as  if  all  others 
were  cold  minglers  of  holy  things  and  profane,  and  friends 
of  abuses.  Yea,  be  a  man  endued  with  great  virtues  and 
fruitful  in  good  works,  yet  if  he  concur  not  with  them,  they 
term  him  (in  derogation)  a  civil  and  moral  man,  and  com- 
pare him  to  Socrates  or  some  heathen  philosopher  :  whereas 
the  wisdom  of  the  Scriptures  teacheth  us  contrariwise  to 
judge  and  denominate  men  according  to  their  works  of  the 
second  table  ;  because  they  of  the  first  are  often  counter- 
feited and  practised  in  hypocrisy.  .  .  .  And  St.  James  saith, 


486  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

This  is  true  religion,  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  the  widow,  etc. 
So  as  that  which  is  with  them  hut  philosophical  and  moral, 
is,  in  the  phrase  of  the  Apostle,  true  religion  and  Chris- 
tianity."1 Indeed,  when  it  is  considered  with  what  des- 
perate pertinacity  and  dire  perversion  of  all  reason  and 
sense  the  modern  mind  still  persists  in  looking  for  living 
light  only  in  the  dead  works  of  past  history,  taking  old 
phosphorescent  gleams  for  the  veritable  divine  fire  of  the 
universe,  one  might  almost  be  persuaded  it  would  be  a 
thing  scarcely  to  be  regretted,  if  a  certain  African  Society 
of  London  should  actually  succeed  in  carrying  the  Bible 
into  Africa. 

In  what  is  expressed  in  his  writings  concerning  the  re- 
vealed religion  of  Biblical  theology,  it  appears  that  his 
views  were  of  a  liberal,  comprehensive,  and  elevated  char- 
acter. The  Prayers  and  Confession  of  Faith,  which  he  put 
in  writing,  exhibit  a  sublime  conception  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  the  subtlest  metaphysical  theism,  and  a  profound 
reverence  for  divine  things.  Nowhere  does  he  descend  to 
the  level  of  a  narrow  bigotry,  a  contracted  dogma,  or  any 
childish  superstition.  On  the  one  hand,  distinguishing  "  the 
faith  "  from  science,  he  handed  it  over  to  the  ministers  of 
inspired  theology :  while  on  the  other,  he  took  care  that 
God  and  religion  should  not  by  his  aid  be  narrowed  down 
to  the  set  formula  of  any  established  church,  dwarfed  into 
the  compass  of  any  extant  orthodox  reason,  nor  circum- 
scribed within  the  limits  of  any  present  state  of  knowledge. 
"  Out  of  the  contemplation  of  nature,  or  ground  of  human 
knowledge,  to  induce  any  verity  or  persuasion  concerning 
the  points  of  faith,"  was,  in  his  judgment,  "  not  safe  ; "  nor 
ought  we  to  attempt  to  draw  down  or  submit  the  mysteries 
of  God  to  our  reason  ;  but,  contrariwise,  to  raise  and  ad- 
vance our  reason  to  the  divine  truth."  2  And  so,  also,  '*  in 
the  true  inquisition  of  nature,  men  should  accustom  them- 

1  Controversies  of  the  Church,  I.  Spedd.  Letters  and  Life,  80-91. 

2  Adv.  of  Learn.,  Works  (Mont),  II.,  129. 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  487 

selves  by  the  light  of  particulars  to  enlarge  their  minds  to 
the  amplitude  of  the  world,  and  not  reduce  the  world  to  the 
narrowness  of  their  minds."  x  On  the  contrary,  the  inter- 
preter of  nature  rising  from  particulars  and  expanding  his 
mind  to  the  breadth  of  the  universal  world,  and  the  human 
reason,  searching  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine  Being 
by  the  light  of  faith,  and,  with  sapience,  advancing  to  the 
full  comprehension  thereof,  must  both  at  length  arrive  at 
the  same  spring-head  and  fountain  of  all  science,  and  find 
themselves  standing  together,  at  last,  upon  the  same  uni- 
versal platform. 

In  philosophy,  he  considered  that  "  the  contemplations 
of  man  do  either  penetrate  unto  God,  or  are  circumfered  in 
nature,  or  are  reflected  and  reverted  upon  himself"  ;  whence 
he  divided  knowledge  into  three  kinds ;  first,  Divine  Phi- 
losophy or  Natural  Theology  ;  second,  Natural  Philosophy, 
including  Metaphysics ;  and  third,  Human  Philosophy  or 
Humanity,  including  all  that  pertains  to  the  mind  and  the 
practical  life  of  man.  But  over  and  above  all,  he  thought 
"  it  was  good  to  erect  and  constitute  one  universal  science, 
by  the  name  of  Philosophia  Prima,  or  Summary  Philosophy, 
or  as  he  sometimes  calls  it,  Philosophy  itself.  The  grounds 
and  scope  of  this  Summary  Philosophy  are  merely  indicated, 
rather  than  systematically  and  at  large  expounded  in  his 
works.  Enough,  however,  appears,  to  show  that  he  com- 
prehended it  in  the  full  depth,  breadth,  and  significance  of 
a  universal  philosophy  ;  and  it  was  nothing  less  than  realism 
and  idealism  all  in  one,  —  an  identity-philosophy.  The  fun- 
damental difference  between  cause  and  effect,  substance 
and  phenomena,  being  and  appearance,  universals  and  par- 
ticulars, degrees  and  differences,  unity  and  variety,  he 
draws  as  clearly  and  in  almost  the  same  language  as  the 
best  of  the  modems.  "  Logic,"  says  he,  "  considereth  of 
many  things  as  they  are  in  notion,  and  this  philosophy  as 
they  are  in  nature  ;  the  one  in  appearance,  the  other  in 
1  Nat.  Hist,  §  290. 


488  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

existence  " ;  but  he  had  found  this  difference  "  better  made 
than  pursued."  l  He  comprehended  the  necessary  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  as  consisting  in  essential  continuous 
activity,  or  living  power ;  and  he  had  some  adequate  con- 
ception of  the  true  nature  of  the  First  Cause,  as  "  the  last 
and  positive  power  and  cause  in  nature,"  and  of  u  the  mode 
of  this  thing  which  is  uncaused."  There  is  no  extended 
exposition  of  this  Higher  Philosophy  in  his  writings,  and  it 
may  be  admitted  that  his  expressions  are  somewhat  general 
and  vague ;  but  the  outlines  are  there.  He  did  not  dwell 
here.  Metaphysical  thinking,  from  the  time  of  Plato  down 
to  his  own  time,  and  especially  in  the  centuries  next  pre- 
ceding him,  had  degenerated  into  mere  cloudy  logomachies 
and  dreamy  mystical  vagaries,  and  the  great  need  was,  then, 
that  the  human  mind  should  be  turned  about  and  con- 
fronted with  actual  Nature,  and  drawn  into  the  surer 
methods  and  safer  paths  of  physical  inquiry  as  the  best,  if 
not  the  only,  means  of  escape  from  the  bewilderment  of 
mysticism,  the  wordy  stupidities  of  scholastic  logic,  super- 
stitious ignorance,  and  the  all-deadening  torpidities  of  ortho- 
dox theology.  Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  mere  begin- 
ners in  the  study  would  very  easily  make  it  out  in  his 
writings  alone.  But  such  as  have  been  made  masters  in 
this  hidden  science  by  the  study  of  the  great  transcendental 
teachers  of  it,  from  Plato  downward  to  our  time,  will  be 
apt  to  conclude,  that  the  whole  view  lay  open  to  him,  and 
that  he  was  at  least  able  to  be  a  master  in  poetry,  which, 
according  to  a  great  modern  critic  and  philosopher,  is  "  the 
essence  of  all  science,  and  requires  the  purest  of  all  study 
for  knowing  it."  1 

In  the  general  upshot,  divine  philosophy  ascends  up  to 
God  ;  natural  philosophy  is  circumfered  in  nature  ;  and 
human  philosophy,  or  humanity,  comprises  all  possible 
human  culture,  in  which  philosophy  itself  has  its  end  and 
use  for  man,  whose  life  begins  in  the  sphere  of  physical 
1  Advancement.  2  Carlyle's  Misc.,  I.  321. 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  489 

nature,  in  the  midst  of  the  woods,  thorns,  and  briers  of  the 
earth  and  the  mere  necessities  upon  it,  and  ascends  upward 
by  the  several  and  successive  degrees  of  ascent  to  the  high- 
est tops  of  mountains  and  uppermost  elevations  of  nature, 
reaching,  at  last,  "  the  magnificent  temple,  palace,  city,  and 
hill"  of  the  Muses,  through  the  entire  range  of  human 
culture,  from  the  fundamental  plain  of  nature  up  to  the 
height  of  the  divine  philosophy,  taking  for  "  rule  and  guide," 
that  "  all  knowledge  is  to  be  limited  by  religion,  and  to  be 
referred  to  use  and  action."  Philosophy  itself,  however, 
having  its  source  at  the  spring-head  of  the  highest  cause, 
and  beginning  at  one  pole,  as  it  were,  of  the  Intellectual 
Globe,  descends  through  the  metaphysics  of  universals 
downward  into  actual  nature  ;  but  the  most  successful  way 
of  studying  it  is,  to  begin  in  the  field  and  sphere  of  physi- 
cal nature  itself,  and,  as  it  were,  at  the  other  pole  of  the 
Intellectual  Globe,  and  to  proceed  by  the  paths,  methods, 
and  instruments  of  natural  philosophy,  taking  inetaphysic 
as  handmaid  and  guide,  until  this  second  philosophy  shall 
reach  the  height  of  the  first  philosophy,  and  the  two 
become  one,  when  the  globe  is  completed,  in  a  thorough 
comprehension  of  God,  Man,  and  Nature,  and  in  a  per- 
fect knowledge  of  the  universal  science  and  all  philosophy. 
Then,  the  descent  to  all  the  practical  arts  would  be  per- 
fectly easy,  and  the  highest  human  culture  would  be  at- 
tainable ;  but  the  end  was  not  to  be  merely  "  contemplative 
enjoyment,"  but  "  a  complete  power  of  action."  And  so, 
in  a  true  sense, 

"  the  art  and  practic  part  of  life 
Must  be  mistress  to  this  theoric."  —  1  Henry  VI.,  Act  I.  Sc.  L 

For  it  is  laid  down,  that  "  nothing  can  be  found  in  the 
material  globe,  which  has  not  its  parallel  in  the  crystalline 
globe  or  Intellect ;  that  is,  nothing  can  come  into  practice, 
of  which  there  is  not  some  doctrine  or  theory." 1 

i  De  Aug.,  Scient.,  Lib.  VIIL,  Works  (Boston),  III.  90. 


490 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 


And  so,  Jupiter,  in  the  "  Cymbeline,"  descends,  sitting 
upon  an  eagle,  and  ends  his  speech  thus :  — 

"  Mount,  eagle,  to  my  palace  crystalline."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

As  touching  the  moral  order  in  this  business,  it  is  (as  it 
were)  reverted  on  itself,  the  necessary  practical  order  of 
progress  for  man  ascending  ever  upward,  while  the  actual 
order  of  elevation,  excellence,  and  degree,  stands  eternally 
fixed  and  immovable ;  and  in  the  course  of  human  culture, 
the  soul,  seeking  "  to  climb  Heaven "  by  the  Hill  of  the 
Muses,  or  the  Pyramid  of  Pah,  in  this  Intellectual  World, 
must  proceed  in  a  sort  of  inverted  tunnel,  thus  :  — 


For,  according  to  Bacon,  "  knowledges  are  as  pyramids, 
whereof  history  and  experience  are  the  basis.  And  so  of 
Natural  Philosophy  the  basis  is  Natural  History  :  the  stage 
next  the  basis  is  Physic ;  the  stage  next  the  vertical  point 
is  Metaphysic.  As  for  the  cone  and  vertical  point  (the 
work  which  God  worketh  from  the  beginning  unto  the  end, 
namely,  the  summary  law  of  nature)  it  may  fairly  be 
doubted  whether  man's  inquiry  can  attain  to  it     But  these 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  491 

three  are  the  true  stages  of  knowledge  ;  which  to  those 
that  are  puffed  up  with  their  own  knowledge  and  rebellious 
against  God,  are  indeed  no  better  than  the  giant's  three 
hills  :  — 

Ter  sunt  conati  imponare  Pelio  Ossam, 

Scilicet  atque  Ossse  frondosum  involvere  Olympum :  — 

(Mountain  on  mountain  thrice  they  strove  to  heap, 
Olympus,  Ossa,  piled  on  Pelion's  steep;)  — 

but  to  those  who  abasing  themselves  refer  all  things  to  the 
glory  of  God,  they  are  as  the  three  acclamations :  Holy  ! 
Holy!  Holy!  For  God  is  holy  in  the  multitude  of  his 
works,  holy  in  the  order  or  connexion  of  them,  and  holy  in 
the  union  of  them.  And  therefore  the  speculation  was 
excellent  in  Parmenides  and  Plato  (although  in  them  it 
was  but  a  bare  speculation)  that  all  things  by  a  certain  scale 
ascend  to  unity." 1 

But  a  divine  man  must  needs  have  more  faces  than 
Vishnu,  and  be  able  to  see  all  ways  at  once ;  not  forgetting 
that  there  is  higher  law  for  higher  regions,  and  lower  law 
for  lower  regions.  One  face  must  look  to  physical  nature, 
that  he  may  make  sure  of  life  and  health  ;  another  face 
must  look  to  property  and  family,  that  life  may  be  comfort- 
able here,  with  a  hope  of  posterity  coming  after ;  another 
face  must  look  to  justice  and  the  civil  law,  that  he  may 
have  safety  in  civilization,  and  keep  his  life,  his  liberty,  his 
property,  and  his  family  ;  another  must  see  to  good  morals, 
that  the  soul  may  have  rest  and  be  at  peace  with  the  world 
and  itself;  another  must  have  an  eye  to  the  beautiful,  that 
he  may  find  heaven  and  be  glad  he  is  alive ;  and  another 
must  pierce  deep,  quite  through  the  natural  into  the  super- 
natural world  beyond,  reaching  even  unto  God  and  relig- 
ion, in  such  manner  as  to  see,  that  all,  anywhere,  now  or 
hereafter,  must  necessarily  depend  upon  the  all-seeing 
divine  providence,  himself  helping,  or  at  his  peril  not  help- 
ing, with  all  his  might.  For  no  man  need  expect  to  see 
l  Trans,  by  Spedding;   Works  (Boston),  VIII.  507. 


492  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

God,  before  being  able  to  see  the  beautiful ;  nor  the  beau- 
tiful, before  good  morals  ;  nor  good  morals,  before  justice  ; 
nor  even  justice,  before  being  clear  of  physical  necessities. 
Nevertheless,  it  will  not  do,  to  look  after  physical  comforts, 
this  year  ;  justice,  the  next ;  morals,  the  next ;  and  religion, 
on  the  death-bed.  The  vision  of  the  mind's  eye  must 
stretch  always  and  at  once  from  top  to  bottom,  from  equa- 
tor to  pole,  and  take  all  latitudes  into  one  view.  Until  a 
man  reach  this  height,  and  begin  to  lead  a  divine  life  in 
heaven,  he  may  be  sure  he  is  not  yet  out  of  hell :  through 
being  of  the  elect  the  days  of  affliction  are  cut  short :  be- 
ing once  clear,  he  will  then  be  also  ready,  either  to  go  or 
to  stay.  But  concerning  the  day  and  the  hour,  no  man 
knoweth,  neither  the  angels  in  heaven,  nor  the  Son,  but 
the  Father  only.  Be  therefore  awake.  And  then,  —  "  we 
defy  augury :  there  is  a  special  providence  in  the  fall  of  a 
sparrow.  If  it  be  now,  't  is  not  to  come ;  if  it  be  not  to 
come,  it  will  be  now ;  if  it  be  not  now,  yet  it  will  come : 
the  readiness  is  all."1 

For  the  rest,  it  may  be  left,  with  Bacon,  to  "  God's  provi- 
dence, that  (as  the  Scripture  saith)  reacheth  even  to  the 
falling  of  a  sparrow."  2 

The  mind  is  the  man.  His  power  of  thought,  and  the 
doings  of  his  thought  are  himself.  His  material  limitations 
and  bodily  investment  are  changing  in  every  instant,  in  the 
constant  flow  of  the  physical  stream :  the  soul  only  is  his 
continuous  self.  "  A  man  is  but  what  he  knoweth,"  says 
Bacon.  So,  too,  God  is  the  eternal  mind  of  nature,  con- 
tinually thinking  a  universe.  His  power  of  thought  and 
the  acts  and  creations  of  his  thought  are  himself;  the 
eternal  course  of  his  thought  measures  the  perpetual  flow 
of  the  providential  order ;  and  so,  the  student  of  nature 
and  philosophy,  ascending,  or  rather,  as  it  may  be,  descend- 
ing, through  particulars  to  the  knowledge  of  the  present 
existent  universe  and  all  its  past  states  and  conditions,  so 

l  Hamlet,  Act  V.  Sc.  2.  2  flat.  Hist.  §  737. 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  493 

far  as  ascertainable  and  knowable,  comes  thereby  to  know 
Him  so  far,  and  by  the  contemplation  of  the  entire  scien- 
tific order  and  whole  history  of  nature,  in  all  its  kingdoms, 
and  man  in  all  the  streams  and  phases  of  his  development, 
civilization,  and  culture,  and  the  order  of  necessity,  jus- 
tice, good,  beauty,  and  purpose  therein,  to  comprehend 
something  of  the  mystery  of  his  providence.  But  He  is 
something  over  and  above  and  beyond  any  existent  uni- 
verse, or  present  state  of  his  thought :  He  is  the  eternally 
continuing  Power  of  Thought  and  "Immortal  Providence,"1 
whose  mind's  eye  sees  all  things  ;  as  when,  in  the  "  Measure 
for  Measure,"  the  reigning  Duke,  being  about  to  absent 
himself  from  his  dominions,  devolves  the  government  upon 
his  substitute,  but  immediately  returns  himself  in  the  secret 
disguise  of  a  friar,  in  order  to  see  how  things  will  be 
managed  by  his  deputy;  and  then,  a  chapter  in  human 
affairs  is  enacted  in  his  presence,  as  if  to  draw  down  to  the 
senses  of  the  theatre  some  conception  of  an  all-seeing  eye. 
And  when,  on  his  return  in  person,  it  became  apparent 
to  the  delinquent  and  erring  deputy,  that  the  Duke  had 
been  "  a  partaker  of  God's  theatre,"  and  that  all  his  acts 
were  known  to  him,  he  submits  thus  :  — 

"Angela.  0,  my  dread  lord ! 

I  should  be  guiltier  than  my  guiltiness, 
To  think  I  can  be  undiscernible, 
When  I  perceive  your  Grace,  like  power  divine, 
Hath  look'd  upon  my  passes." — Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

"  For,"  says  Bacon,  "  if  a  man  can  be  partaker  of  God's 
theatre,  he  shall  likewise  be  partaker  of  God's  rest ; "  and 
again,  that  "  men  ought  to  look  up  to  the  eternal  provi- 
dence and  divine  judgment "  :  — 

"Miranda.  How  came  we  ashore  ? 

Pros.    By  providence  divine."  —  Temp.,  Ad  I.  Sc.  2. 

This  is  that  same  "  Deity,  which  is  the  author,  by  power 
and  providence,   of   strange   wonders." a    And   again   he 
i  Tempest,  Act  V.  Sc.  1.  *  Nat.  Hist.,  §  720. 


494  THE  TRUE  RELIGION. 

says :  "  Certainly  it  is  heaven  upon  earth  to  have  a  man's 
mind  move  in  charity,  rest  in  providence,  and  turn  upon  the 
poles  of  truth  "  :  — 

—  "  arming  myself  with  patience, 
To  stay  the  providence  of  some  high  powers, 
That  govern  us  below."  —  Jul.  Ccesai;  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  the  strangers,  that  arrived  in  the  island  of  Bensalem, 
in  the  New  Atlantis,  finding  that  the  Governor  knew  all 
about  them  and  their  country,  while  they  had  never  before 
heard  of  him  or  his  island,  were  lost  in  wonder,  not  know- 
ing what  to  make  of  it ;  for  that  it  seemed  to  them  "  a  con- 
dition and  propriety  of  divine  powers  and  beings,  to  be 
hidden  and  unseen  of  others,  and  yet  to  have  others  open 
and  as  in  a  light  to  them."  Among  other  very  admirable 
observations  upon  the  ideal  in  Shakespeare,  Gervinus 
makes  this  happy  remark :  "  This  ideality  shows  itself,  also, 
in  the  high  moral  spirit,  which  in  Shakespeare's  plays  con- 
trols the  complications  of  fate  and  the  issues  of  human 
actions,  in  that  spirit,  which  develops  before  us  that  higher 
order,  which  Bacon  required  in  poetry,  indicating  the  eter- 
nal and  uncorrupted  justice  in  human  things,  the  finger  of 
God,  which  our  dull  eyes  do  not  perceive  in  reality." *  In- 
deed, throughout  both  these  writings,  the  universe,  human 
affairs  included,  is  contemplated  as  being  moved,  governed, 
and  directed  by  an  all-pervading  and  immanent  divine 
providence ;  a  fact,  of  which  the  mere  materialist,  or  poli- 
tician, who  imagines  that  states  and  peoples,  lives  and  for- 
tunes, are  to  be  manipulated  by  cunning  and  manoeuvre,  like 
machines  that  go  by  wire-pulling  and  money,  is  not  sup- 
posed to  take  much  note,  any  more  than  certain  politic 
church-building  priests,  but  of  which  Hamlet  seems  to 
have  been  fully  aware  ;  as  when,  at  the  grave,  taking  up 
the  skull  that  had  been  "  knocked  about  the  mazzard  with 
a  sexton's  spade,"  he  speculates  thus  :  — 

"  This  might  be  the  pate  of  a  politician,  which  this  ass  now  o'er-reaches ; 
one  that  would  circumvent  God,  might  it  not?  "  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

i  Shakes.  Comm.,  by  Prof.  Gervinus,  II.  582  (Lond.  1863). 


THE  TRUE  RELIGION.  495 

The  world  known  to  us  may  be  but  a  small  part  of  the 
whole  existent  creation  :  as  far  as  we  may  come  to  see  and 
know  it,  we  may  know  Him  and  no  further.  So  far  as  we 
are  able  thus  to  discover  and  see  the  course  and  ends  of 
providence  in  the  known  and  knowable  universe  of  mind 
within  us  and  mind  without  us,  extending  our  view  around 
us,  and  with  the  eye  of  prevision  forward  into  the  certain, 
the  possible,  and  the  probable  future,  as  well  as  with  the 
eye  of  science  backward  into  "  the  abysm  of  time,"  back 
through  the  whole  historical  and  traditional  line,  and  thence 
backward  through  the  archaeological  and  ethnological  lines, 
extending  far  into  geological  epochs  ;  and  thence  still  back- 
ward through  the  entire  zoological  scale  of  ascending  types 
of  created  forms  and  the  stratified  leaves  of  the  geological 
record  to  the  cooling  crust  of  the  molten  globe  ;  and  thence 
still  backward,  through  the  astronomical  order,  even  to  the 
time  when  the  first  forms  of  substance  began  to  be  created 
and  gathered  by  the  creative  power  into  a  spiral  nebula, 
perhaps,  to  form  a  world,  —  when  time  and  chronology  for 
a  solar  system,  or  a  globe,  began,  being  bounded  out  of  eter- 
nity, which  is  the  possibility  of  time,  and  out  of  immensity, 
which  is  the  possibility  of  space ;  —  and  taking  even  so 
much  of  the  past  order  of  creation  into  view,  and  learn- 
ing to  comprehend  the  present  and  ever  continuous  order, 
with  due  perception  of  the  actual  and  eternal,  and  with 
due  prevision  and  anticipation  of  the  possible  and  probable 
in  the  future  continuation  thereof,  we  may  come  not  only 
to  understand  something  of  the  mystery  of  His  providence, 
but  even  to  possess  a  certain  degree  and  measure  of  fore- 
knowledge ;  but  not  otherwise.  This  law  is  never  dead, 
nor  asleep :  — 

•  "  Now,  't  is  awake ; 

Takes  note  of  what  is  done;  and,  like  a  prophet, 
Looks  in  a  glass,  that  shows  what  future  evils, 
(Either  now,  or  by  remissness  new-conceiv'd, 
And  so  in  progress  to  be  hatch'd  and  born,) 


496  DESTINY. 

Are  now  to  have  no  successive  degrees, 
But  ere  they  live  to  end." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

So  much  may  be  revealed  to  man  ;  no  more  can  be  re- 
vealed to  him  in  any  way ;  for  nothing  streams  into  man 
from  the  supernatural  world,  in  the  direction  in  which  the 
thinking  soul  comes,  but  his  existence  as  such  and  the 
power  to  perceive,  conceive,  remember,  think,  know,  and 
do.  Thoughts,  ideas,  or  knowledge  of  what  the  ideas  and 
purposes  of  the  Creator  are,  or  have  been,  or  foreknowl- 
edge of  what  they  will  be,  do  not,  nor  can,  by  any  conceiv- 
able possibility,  enter  into  the  mind  of  man  from  that  direc- 
tion, nor  by  that  road. 

§  2.  DESTINY. 

Men  have  tried  to  believe,  that  some  Daemon,  or 
Genius,  or  Angel,  or  some  other  kind  of  spiritual  phan- 
tasm, stood  behind  their  inmost  selves,  pouring  into  them, 
as  it  were,  from  the  supernatural  world,  thoughts,  ideas, 
revelations,  divinations,  prophecies,  auguries,  and  fore- 
knowledge ;  and  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  put 
themselves  into  an  attitude  of  passive  receptivity,  and  to 
let  these  supernatural  communications  flow  into  them,  as  it 
were  by  the  divine  grace,  or  some  kind  of  spiritual  teleg- 
raphy. The  idea  is  as  old  as  Socrates,  at  least ;  and  it  has 
made  a  large  figure  among  the  poets,  both  ancient  and 
modern.  Even  Goethe  must  have  a  Daemon,  and  a  spirit 
must  tell  his  Mignon  who  was  the  father  of  Felix.  Our 
author  had  need  of  the  same  conception  for  his  poetical 
purposes,  and  he  makes  good  use  of  it  thus :  — 

"  Mad.  And  under  him, 

My  Genius  is  rebuk'd."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

and  again :  — 

"  Sooth.    Thy  daemon,  that 's  thy  spirit  which  keeps  thee,  is 
Noble,  courageous,  high,  unmatchable, 
"Where  Caesar  is  not ;  but  near  him,  thy  angel 
Becomes  a  fear."  — Ant.  and  Cko.,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 


DESTINY.  497 

and  still  again  :  — 

"  Duke.    One  of  these  men  is  Genius  to  the  other; 
And  so  of  these:  which  is  the  natural  man, 
And  which  the  spirit  ?  "  —  Com.  of  Errors,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

and  still  again  :  — 

"  Tro.    Hark !  you  are  call'd :  some  say  the  Genius  so 
Cries, '  Come! '  to  him  that  instantly  must  die." 

Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  4. 

and  thus,  again,  in  the  "  Julius  Caesar  "  :  — 

"  Brut.    Since  Cassius  first  did  whet  me  against  Caesar, 
I  have  not  slept. 

Between  the  acting  of  a  dreadful  thing, 
And  the  first  motion,  all  the  interim  is 
Like  a  phantasma,  or  a  hideous  dream : 
The  Genius,  and  the  mortal  instruments 
Are  then  in  council ;  and  the  state  of  man, 
Like  to  a  little  kingdom,  suffers  then 
The  nature  of  an  insurrection."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

And  thus  guardian  angels,  guiding  geniuses,  good  daemons, 
and  spirits  good  and  bad,  have,  from  the  earliest  times, 
haunted  the  imaginations  of  men.  The  Chaldaean  astrol- 
ogy, the  Hebrew  inspiration,  the  divinations  of  the  Grecian 
oracles,  and  the  Roman  auguries,  were  little  else  than  more 
or  less  gross  forms  of  this  same  superstitious  conceit  Even 
in  the  days  of  St  Paul  the  order  of  dignities  in  the  Church 
was  such,  that  prophecy  and  divination  held  only  the 
second  place,  and  miracle-working,  only  the  fourth  rank ; 
for,  says  St  Paul,  "  God  hath  set  some  in  the  church, 
first  apostles,  secondarily  prophets,  thirdly  teachers,  after 
that  miracles,  then  gifts  of  healings,  helps,  governments, 
diversities  of  tongues.  Are  all  apostles  ?  Are  all  proph- 
ets ?  Are  all  teachers  ?  Are  all  workers  of  miracles  ? 
Have  all  the  gifts  of  healing  ?  Do  all  speak  with  tongues  ? 
Do  all  interpret?  But  covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts. 
And  yet  shew  I  unto  you  a  more  excellent  way."  l  Bacon 
treated  all  these  imaginary  supernatural  powers,  spirits,  and 
gifts,  with  little  more  ceremony  than  he  did  those  powers 
l  1  Cor.  xii.  28-31. 


498  DESTINY. 

of  miracle-working  faith,  that  presumed  to  command  na- 
ture, —  those  "  vast  and  bottomless  follies,"  which  were  to 
be  driven  back  into  the  limbo  of  Paracelsus  and  "  the 
darksome  authors  of  magic." 

But,  for  the  substance  of  the  soul,  he  believed  it  was  not 
"  extracted  out  of  the  mass  of  heaven  and  earth,"  but  was 
"  a  spirit  newly  inclosed  in  a  body  of  earth."  1  He  was 
not  of  the  school  of  those  who  look  upon  mind,  or  soul,  as 
a  mere  secretion  of  the  brain,  or  as  a  simple  result  of  some 
kind  of  arterial  brain-flow  and  consumption  of  neurine,  as 
light  comes  of  the  burning  of  a  candle ;  for  he  says,  "  the 
nature  of  man  (the  special  and  peculiar  work  of  prov- 
idence) includes  mind  and  intellect,  which  is  the  seat  of 
providence  ;  and  since  to  derive  mind  and  reason  from 
principles  brutal  and  irrational  would  be  harsh  and  incred- 
ible, it  follows  almost  necessarily  that  the  human  spirit  was 
endued  with  providence  not  without  the  precedent  and  in- 
tention and  warrant  of  the  greater  providence  "  ;  and  in 
reference  to  final  causes,  he  thought  it  was  to  be  regarded 
as  "  the  centre  of  the  world." 2  Again  he  says,  "  the  soul 
on  the  other  side  is  the  simplest  of  substances ;  as  is  well 
expressed,  — 

—  purumque  reliquit 
JSthereum  sensum,  atque  aural  simplicis  ignem. 

Whence  it  is  no  marvel  that  the  soul  so  placed  enjoys  no 
rest :  according  to  the  axiom  that  the  motion  of  things  out 
of  their  place  is  rapid,  and  in  their  place  calm."  8  It  was 
not  a  product  of  dead  substratum,  but  "  was  breathed  im- 
mediately from  God ;  so  that  the  ways  and  proceedings  of 
God  with  spirits  [souls]  are  not  included  in  Nature,  that  is, 
in  the  laws  of  heaven  and  earth :  but  are  reserved  to  the 
law  of  his  secret  will  and  grace :  wherein  God  worketh 
still  and  resteth  not  from  the  work  of  redemption,  as  he 

1  Valerius  Terminus,  Works  (Boston),  VI.  28. 

2  Prometheus,  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  147. 

8  Trans,  of  the  Be  Aug.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  25. 


DESTINY.  499 

resteth  from  the  work  of  creation  ;  but  continueth  working 
to  the  end  of  the  world  ;  what  time  that  work  also  shall  be 
accomplished,  and  an  eternal  Sabbath  shall  ensue." 1  Again, 
in  the  Advancement,  he  expresses  the  opinion  that  the  soul 

of  man  ■  was  immediately  inspired  from  God ; and 

therefore  the  true  knowledge  of  the  nature  and  state  of  the 
soul  must  come  by  the  same  inspiration  that  gave  the  sub- 
stance." This  passage  in  a  work  intended  for  the  general 
reader,  and  dedicated  to  an  orthodox  king,  as  well  as  some 
others,  in  popular  works,  might  admit  of  an  interpretation 
in  accordance  with  some  views  of  inspired  theology ;  but 
whether  his  idea  of  the  mode  and  manner  of  this  inspira- 
tion of  a  soul  into  the  body  was  that  of  Gratiano,  when  he 
was  almost  made  to  waver  in  his  faith,  and 

"  To  hold  opinion  with  Pythagoras, 
That  souls  of  animals  infuse  themselves 
Into  the  trunks  of  men,"  — 

Mer.  of  Ven.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

or  whatever  precise  signification  may  be  attributed  to  the 
very  common  words,  inspired,  breathed  into,  or  infused,  it  is 
plainly  the  substance  of  the  soul  that  he  considers  as  com- 
ing from  that  source,  and  in  this  way  ;  and  any  true  knowl- 
edge of  its  nature  and  state,  its  origin  and  constitution  as  a 
speciality  of  thinking  essence,  must  be  sought  in  that  same 
source,  "the  greater  providence"  itself;  that  is,  we  may 
suppose,  in  ontology  or  the  science  of  all  being.  Having 
thus  got  a  soul,  we  must  look  into  it  in  order  to  see  what  it 
is ;  and  a  sound  psychology  will  begin  with  the  actual  fact, 
and  proceed  with  an  exact  analysis  of  its  operations  as  a 
thinking  power.  In  his  interpretation  of  the  Fable  of  Pan, 
he  gives  us  some  further  light,  with  some  more  definite  ex- 
pression, on  this  subject,  and  proceeds  thus :  — 

"  The  Nymphs,  that  is,  souls,  please  Pan ;  for  the  souls  of  the  living  are  the 
delight  of  the  world.  But  he  is  deservedly  the  commander  of  them,  since 
they  follow,  each  her  own  nature  as  leader,  and,  with  infinite  variety,  each  as 

i  Confession  of  Faith,  Works  (Boston),  XIV.  147. 


500  DESTINY. 

if  in  her  own  native  manner,  leap  and  dance  about  him,  with  never  ceasing 
motion.  And  so,  some  acute  one  of  the  moderns  has  reduced  all  the  facul- 
ties of  the  soul  to  Motion,  and  noted  the  conceit  and  precipitation  of  some 
of  the  ancients,  who,  considering  of  the  memory,  the  imagination,  and  the 
reason,  and,  with  careless  eye,  hastily  viewing  the  subject,  overlooked  the 
Thinking  Power,  which  holds  the  first  place.  For  whoever  remembers,  or 
even  recollects,  thinks ;  and  whoever  imagines,  likewise  thinks ;  and  who- 
ever reasons,  also  thinks:  indeed  the  soul,  whether  prompted  by  sense,  or 
acting  by  its  own  permission,  whether  in  the  functions  of  the  intellect,  or 
in  those  of  the  affections  and  will,  leaps  to  the  modulation  of  thoughts ;  and 
this  is  what  was  meant  by  the  leaping  of  the  Nymphs."  1 

And  in  the  following  passage  from  the  "  Othello,"  we  may 
discover  a  similar  course  of  reasoning  upon  the  will,  and 
the  thinking  power  acting  by  its  own  permission,  thus  :  — 

"  Iago.  Our  bodies  are  gardens,  to  the  which  our  wills  are  gardeners ;  so 
that  if  we  will  plant  nettles,  or  sow  lettuce;  set  hyssop,  and  weed  up 
thyme ;  supply  it  with  one  gender  of  herbs,  or  distract  it  with  many ;  either 
to  have  it  sterile  with  idleness,  or  manured  with  industry;  why  the  power 
and  corrigible  authority  of  this  lies  in  our  wills.  If  the  balance  of  our  lives 
had  not  one  scale  of  reason  to  poise  another  of  sensuality,  the  blood  and 
baseness  of  our  natures  would  conduct  us  to  most  preposterous  conclusions : 
but  we  have  reason  to  cool  our  raging  motions,  our  carnal  stings,  our  un- 
bitted  lusts,  whereof  I  take  this,  that  you  call  love,  to  be  a  sect  or  scion. 

Rod.    It  cannot  be. 

Iago.  It  is  merely  a  lust  of  the  blood  and  a  permission  of  the  will."  — 
Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

A  learned  interpreter  of  the  Sonnets,  bringing  the  light 
of  the  "  Hermetic  Philosophy  "  to  bear  upon  them,  with 
an  excellent  appreciation  of  their  quality,  scope,  and  pur- 
pose in  general,  very  justly  remarks  upon  the  135th  and 
136th,  in  particular,  that  "  far  from  being  a  play  upon  the 
poet's  name,  as  many  suppose,"  they  "  contain  the  poet's 
metaphysical  view  of  God  as  Power  "  2  or  Will ;  an  inter- 
pretation which  may  find  additional  warrant  in  the  Baco- 
nian distinction  between  the  human  and  the  divine  soul, 
fatally  separated  from  each  other  (as  our  Hermetic  philoso- 
pher profoundly  conceives)  by  the  mystic  Wall  of  the  flesh 
or  material  nature,  as  illustrated  in  the  "  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  "  ;  for,  between  this  poet  and  the  philosopher,  there 

l  De  Aug.  Scient.,  L.  II.  c.  13. 

a  Remarks  on  the  Sonnets  of  Shakes.,  (New  York,  1865,)  p.  50. 


DESTINY.  501 

is  everywhere  a  remarkable  concurrence  of  idea,  and  his 
doctrine  of  the  will  is  made  the  burden  of  these  singular 
sonnets,  running  thus :  — 

"  Whoever  hath  her  wish,  thou  hast  thy  Will, 
And  Will  to  boot,  and  Will  in  overplus; 
More  than  enough  am  I  that  vex  thee  still, 
To  thy  sweet  will  making  addition  thus. 
"Wilt  thou  whose  will  is  large  and  spacious, 
Not  once  vouchsafe  to  hide  my  will  in  thine  ? 
Shall  will  in  others  seem  right  gracious, 
And  in  my  will  no  fair  acceptance  shine  ? 
The  sea,  all  water,  yet  receives  rain  still, 
And  in  abundance  addeth  to  his  store ; 
So  thou,  being  rich  in  Will,  add  to  thy  Witt 
One  will  of  mine  to  make  thy  large  Will  more. 

Let  no  unkind,  no  fair  beseechers  kill ; 

Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  Will. 

If  thy  soul  check  thee  that  I  come  so  near, 
Swear  to  thy  blind  soul  that  I  was  thy  Will, 
And  will  thy  soul  knows  is  admitted  there, 
Thus  far  for  love,  my  love-suit  sweet  fulfil. 
Will  will  fulfil  the  treasure  of  thy  love, 
I  fill  it  full  with  wills,  and  my  will  one, 
In  things  of  great  receipt  with  ease  we  prove, 
Among  a  number  one  is  reckon'd  none. 
Then  in  the  number  let  me  pass  untold, 
Though  in  thy  store's  account  I  one  must  be, 
For  nothing  hold  me,  so  it  please  thee  hold 
That  nothing  me  a  something  sweet  to  thee : 
Make  but  my  name  thy  love,  and  love  that  still, 
And  then  thou  lov'st  me  for  my  name  is  WUL"  i 

When  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  both  die  on  the  stage,  in  the 
"  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  the  play  proceeds  thus  :  — 

"  Thes.    Moonshine  and  Lion  are  left  to  bury  the  dead. 
Bern.    Ay,  and  Wall  too. 

Bat.    No,  I  assure  you ;  the  wall  is  down  that  parted  their  fathers." 

Mid.  Night's  Dr.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

There  is  here  most  certainly  an  influx,  inspiration,  or 
infusion  of  a  power  to  think ;  a  power  to  perceive,  conceive, 

i  See  also  Shakes.  Sonnets,  (Facsimile  of  ed.  of  1609,)  London,  1862; 
•which  uses  italics  and  capital  letters  as  here  printed. 


502  DESTINY. 

remember,  and  act ;  a  reason  and  a  power  of  will  that,  by  its 
own  permission,  leaps  to  the  modulation  of  thought.  That 
power  contains  under  it  the  whole  content  of  the  term  soul, 
a  self-acting,  self-directing  thinking  power ;  and  the  analy- 
sis of  that  content  gives  the  faculties  of  the  soul,  or  those 
modes  of  operation,  which  are  called  the  mental  powers. 
This  influx  of  the  substance  of  the  soul,  as  such  thinking 
power,  is  all  that  comes  from  that  source  ;  and  the  conceit 
of  a  genius,  daemon,  angel,  or  any  other  kind  of  soul  or 
spirit,  accompanying  it,  lying  in  behind  it,  and  guiding  and 
directing  its  operations,  other  than  perhaps  "  the  secret  will 
and  grace  "  of  "  the  greater  providence  "  itself,  he  would 
seem  to  have  considered  as  •  a  visionary  invention  of  the 
imaginations  of  men.  "  Divination  by  influxion  "  was  a 
notion  of  like  nature,  "  grounded  upon  this  other  conceit, 
that  the  mind,  as  a  mirrour  or  glass,  receives  a  kind  of  sec- 
ondary illumination  from  the  foreknowledge  of  God  and 
spirits."  '  And  surely,  any  supposition  of  revelations  of 
the  thoughts,  ideas,  will,  and  purposes  of  God  being  poured, 
inspired,  or  breathed,  into  this  soul  from  this  same  direc- 
tion, and  in  addition  to  the  soul  itself,  like  a  "flowing 
river,"  of  which  the  receptive  soul  is  only  a  sort  of  "  pen- 
sioner "  and  a  "  surprised  spectator,"  2  as  some  think,  or  as 
any  kind  of  secondary  illumination  out  of  the  foreknowl- 
edge of  God  and  spirits,  can  be  no  less  superstitious  and 
absurd  than  the  fantastical  vagaries  of  divination.  Soul, 
indeed,  streams  into  man  from  a  source  which  is  hid- 
den, but  his  thoughts  and  visions  are  his  own  work.  No 
knowledge  of  the  supernatural  world,  nor  of  the  ideas, 
thoughts,  purposes,  foreknowledge,  and  providence  of  God 
in  the  universe  ever  did  come,  nor  ever  can  come,  to  man 
directly  in  that  way,  nor  by  that  road  ;  though  behind  this 
soul  there  may  continue  to  be  "  the  law  of  his  secret  will 
and  grace,"  as  in  the  play  :  — 

1  Trans,  of  the  De  Aug.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  53. 

2  Emerson's  Essays,  First  Series  (Boston,  1854),  p.  244. 


DESTINY.  503 

"  K.  Rich.    All  unavoided  is  the  doom  of  destiny. 
Q.  Eliz.    True,  when  avoided  grace  makes  destiny." 

Richard  III.  Act  I V.  Sc.  4. 

And  the  witch  says  of  Macbeth,  — 

"  He  shall  spurn  fate,  scorn  death,  and  bear 
His  hopes  'bove  wisdom,  grace,  and  fear."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

And  again,  the  operation  of  this  same  grace  may  be  dis- 
tinctly seen  in  the  following  lines  :  — 

"Mai.  Comes  the  King  forth,  I  pray  you  ? 

Doc.    Ay,  sir :  there  are  a  crew  of  wretched  souls, 
That  stay  his  cure :  their  malady  convinces 
The  great  assay  of  art;  but  at  his  touch, 
Such  sanctity  hath  Heaven  given  his  hand, 
They  presently  amend. 

Mai.  I  thank  you,  Doctor.  [Exit  Doctor. 

Macd.    What 's  the  disease  he  means? 

Mai.  'T  is  call'd  the  evil: 

A  most  miraculous  work  in  this  good  king, 
Which  often,  since  my  here  remain  in  England, 
I  have  seen  him  do.    How  he  solicits  Heaven, 
Himself  but  knows;  but  strangely  -visited  people, 
All  swoln  and  ulcerous,  pitiful  to  the  eye, 
The  mere  despair  of  surgery,  he  cures ; 
Hanging  a  golden  stamp  about  their  necks, 
Put  on  with  holy  prayers :  and  't  is  spoken, 
To  th'  succeeding  royalty  he  leaves 
The  healing  benediction.     With  this  strange  virtue, 
He  hath  a  heavenly  gift  of  prophecy, 
And  sundry  blessings  haug  about  his  throne, 
That  speak  him  full  of  grace."  —  Macb.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

And  in  the  end,  when  he  has  been  proclaimed  King  of 
Scotland,  he  concludes  his  speech  thus  :  — 

"Mai.  This,  and  what  needful  else 

That  calls  upon  us,  by  the  grace  of  Grace, 
We  will  perform  in  measure,  time,  and  place."  — Act  V.  Sc.  7. 

"  For  we  see,"  says  Bacon,  u  that  in  matters  of  faith  and 
religion  our  imagination  raises  itself  above  our  reason ;  not 
that  divine  illumination  resides  in  the  imagination ;  its  seat 
being  rather  in  the  very  citadel  of  the  mind  and  under- 
standing ;  but  that  the  divine  grace  uses  the  motions  of  the 
imagination  as  an  instrument  of  illumination,  just  as  it 


504  DESTINY. 

uses  the  motions  of  the  will  as  an  instrument  of  virtue ; 
which  is  the  reason  why  religion  ever  sought  access  to  the 
mind  by  similitudes,  types,  parables,  visions,  dreams  " :  — 1 

"Ang.  I  did  but  smile  till  now : 

Now,  good  my  lord,  give  me  the  scope  of  justice; 
My  patience  here  is  touched.    I  do  perceive, 
These  poor  informal  women  are  no  more 
But  instruments  of  some  more  mightier  member. 
That  sets  them  on."  — Meas.for  Meas.,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Bacon  clearly  saw,  that  over  and  above  "  this  part  of 
knowledge  touching  the  soul,"  there  were  "  two  appendices," 
divination  and  fascination,  under  which  he  appears  to  have 
included  all  the  imaginations,  vagaries,  and  waking  dreams 
of  oracles,  auguries,  prophecies,  visions  and  apocalyptic 
revelations,  astrology,  divination,  natural  magic,  incanta- 
tions, and  miracle-working  (spiritual-rapping  having  died 
out  for  once  with  the  old  Montanist  schism  long  before  his 
time)  ;  "  for,"  says  he,  "  they  have  exalted  the  power  of 
imagination  to  be  much  one  with  miracle-working  faith," 
and  "  have  rather  vapoured  forth  fables  than  kindled  truth." 
All  this  was  grounded  on  the  conceit  "  that  the  mind,  as  a 
mirrour  or  glass,  should  take  illumination  from  the  fore- 
knowledge of  God  and  spirits  "  (as  stated  in  the  Advance- 
ment) ;  and  the  retiring  of  the  mind  within  itself  was  the 
state  which  is  most  susceptible  of  these  "  divine  influxions, 
save  that  it  is  accompanied,  in  this  case,  with  a  fervency 
and  elevation,  which  the  ancients  noted  for  fury."  But  in 
his  opinion,  this  divination  by  influxion,  or  any  direct  com- 
munication to  man  out  of  the  foreknowledge  of  God,  or 
spirits,  was  a  mere  superstitious  conceit,  such  as  had  filled 
the  heated  fancies  of  the  ancient  Furies.  But  this  part,  he 
continues,  "  touching  angels  and  spirits  I  may  rather  chal- 
lenge as  fabulous  and  fantastical : "  — 

"  This  is  the  very  coinage  of  your  brain  : 
This  bodiless  creation  ecstasy 
Is  very  cunning  in."  —  Hamlet,  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

1  Translation  of  the  Be  Aug.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  61. 


DESTINY.  505 

Not  by  this  way  comes  the  knowledge  of  God,  his  thought, 
his  purposes,  his  will,  or  his  providence  in  the  universe,  nor 
of  the  duties,  ways  to  happiness,  destiny,  or  future  life  of 
man.  If  he  would  seek  that  knowledge,  he  must  address 
himself  to  the  fore-front  view  of  the  boundless  universe  of 
God's  thought  and  providence,  and  by  the  light  to  be 
derived  from  the  study  of  the  laws  and  nature  of  thought 
in  his  own  soul,  and  by  the  power  of  thought  which  is  given 
him,  and  the  light  which  it  creates  and  lets  be  within  him, 
both  see  and  read,  in  that  infinite  book  of  revelation  that 
lies  wide  open  before  him,  as  much  as  it  may  be  in  his 
power  to  comprehend  and  contain.  It  would  certainly  be 
idle  for  him  to  attempt  to  read  any  more,  and  absurd  to 
imagine  that  more  could  be  imparted  to  him  in  any  way. 
No  further  revelation  is,  or  ever  was,  possible  to  be  made 
to  any  man.  No  greater  revelation  can  be  necessary  for 
his  use  ;  for,  if  he  will  but  open  his  eyes  and  look  into  it, 
if  he  can  but  see  far  enough  and  deep  enough,  he  may  see 
the  whole  reflected  in  his  own  mind,  which  "  God  hath 
framed  as  a  mirrour  or  glass,  capable  of  the  image  of  the 
universal  world." 

According  to  Bacon's  interpretation,  besides  Mercury, 
who  was  the  ordinary  messenger,  Pan,  or  the  universe,  was 
"  the  other  messenger  of  the  gods  ["  alter  Deorum  Nun- 
cius  "]  ;  and  this  was  plainly  a  divine  allegory  ;  since,  next 
after  the  word  of  God  [the  usual  salvo  to  the  Biblical 
orthodoxies],  the  image  of  the  world,  itself,  is  the  herald  of 
the  divine  power  and  wisdom ;  as  the  Psalmist  also  sung, 
"  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament 
showeth  his  handiwork." 

But  it  is  idle  for  man, 

—  "  proud  man ! 
Drest  in  a  little  brief  authority ; 
Most  ignorant  of  what  he 's  most  assur'd, 
His  glassy  essence," 

to  look  for  the  image,  or  the  reality,  in  the  back  of  the  mir- 


506  DESTINY. 

ror ;  for,  in  this  way,  he  merely  makes  a  fool  of  himself, 

and 

"  like  an  angry  ape, 
Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven, 
As  make  the  angels  weep." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

For  nothing  can  be  seen  there  but  that  "  deceiving  and 
deformed  imagery,"  which  the  mind  of  man,  in  any  age, 
has  been,  and  is,  capable  of  imagining  and  representing  to 
itself,  with  or  without  the  help  of  teacher,  prophet,  or  mes- 
siah  ;  book,  bible,  gospel,  sermon,  speech,  or  other  mode  of 
communicating  the  thoughts  and  visions  of  men  to  one 
another.  Nevertheless,  men  will  persist  in  looking  for  light 
and  knowledge  from  within  and  behind  the  mirror,  deceived 
by  the  miraculous  reflection  ;  for,  as  Bacon  says  again,  "  the 
mind  of  man  (dimmed  and  clouded  as  it  is  by  the  covering 
of  the  body),  far  from  being  a  smooth,  clear,  and  equal 
glass  (wherein  'the  beams  of  things  reflect  according  to 
their  true  incidence),  is  rather  like  an  enchanted  glass,  full 
of  superstition  and  imposture."  *  But  in  truth  and  reality, 
"  man,  as  the  minister  and  interpreter  of  nature,  does,  and 
understands  as  much  as  he  has  observed  of  the  order,  ope- 
ration, and  mind  of  nature ;  and  neither  knows  nor  is  able 
to  do  more."  2  And  "  every  thing  depends  upon  our  fixing 
the  mind's  eye  steadily  in  order  to  receive  their  images 
exactly  as  they  exist,  and  may  God  never  permit  us  to  give 
out  the  dream  of  our  fancy  as  a  model  of  the  world,  but 
rather  in  his  kindness  vouchsafe  to  us  the  means  of  writing 
a  revelation  and  true  vision  of  the  traces  and  stamps  of  the 
Creator  on  his  creatures  "  [creations].  And  in  the  plays, 
we  have  this  same  metaphorical  use  of  the  stamp,  thus :  — 

"Ang.  It  were  as  good 

To  pardon  him  that  hath  from  Nature  stolen 
A  man  already  made,  as  to  remit 
Their  saucy  sweetness  that  do  coin  Heaven's  image 

i  Translation  of  the  De  Aug.,  Works  (Boston),  IX.  98. 
2  Novum  Organum. 


DESTINY.  507 

In  stamps  that  are  forbid.    'T  is  all  as  easy 
Falsely  to  take  away  a  life  true  made, 
As  to  put  metal  in  restrained  means, 
To  make  a  false  one. 
Iaab.    'T  is  set  down  so  in  Heaven,  but  not  in  Earth." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 
And  again  thus  :  — 

"Lear.    Hear,  Nature !  hear,  dear  goddess,  hear! 
Suspend  thy  purpose,  if  thou  didst  intend 
To  make  this  creature  fruitful ! 

If  she  must  teem, 

Create  her  child  of  spleen ;  that  it  may  live, 
And  be  a  thwart  disnatur'd  torment  to  her! 
Let  it  stamp  wrinkles  in  her  brow  of  youth." 

Lear,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

And  thus  again  :  — 

"  Poslh.  We  are  all  bastards; 

And  that  most  venerable  man  which  I 
Did  call  my  father,  was  I  know  not  where 
When  I  was  stamped."  —  Cymb.,  Act  II.  Sc.  5. 

And  in  the  same  play  thus  :  — 

"  Cym.  Guiderius  had 

Upon  his  neck  a  mole,  a  sanguine  star: 
It  was  a  mark  of  wonder. 

Bel.  This  is  he, 

Who  hath  upon  him  still  that  natural  stamp. 
It  was  wise  Nature's  end  in  the  donation, 
To  be  his  evidence  now."  — Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

Nothing  real  ^  to  be  discovered  in  the  back  of  the  mirror : 
on  the  contrary,  with  all  due  reverence,  "  that  angel  of  the 
world,"  1  or  with  the  "  three  reverences  "  of  Goethe,  rev- 
erence for  what  is  above  us,  reverence  for  what  is  around 
us,  and  reverence  for  what  is  under  us,  or  Shakespeare's 
reverence  for  Nature  as  it  stands  "  in  all  line  of  order  and 
authentic  place,"  and  Bacon's  reverence  for  ourselves,  which 
is,  "  next  religion,  the  chiefest  bridle  of  all  vices,"  a  and  that 
true  religion  which  is  founded  upon  a  rock,  wherein,  accord- 
ing to  Goethe,  man  attains  "  the  highest  elevation  of  which 
he  is  capable,  that  of  being  justified  in  reckoning  himself 
l  Cymb.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2.  a  New  Atlantis. 


508  DESTINY. 

the  best  that  God  and  Nature  have  produced,"  let  us  turn 
about  and  front  the  world,  with  all  our  faculties,  perceptive, 
reflective,  creative,  intuitive,  those  first  and  last  God-given 
guides  to  our  steps,  our  hands,  and  our  souls,  with  any 
help,  indeed,  that  may  come  of  such  as  are  wiser,  better, 
and  more  able  to  see  than  ourselves,  whether  poet,  seer, 
philosopher,  or  divine,  —  whatever  Saviour  may  be  able  to 
save  and  keep  us  from  falling  ;  —  but  never  losing  sight  of 
the  mind  of  Nature  and  that  Immortal  Providence,  which 
alone  is  most  able  to  save  :  "  So  God  created  man  in  his 
own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  him."  There- 
fore must  he  work  and  be  vigilant,  thoughtful,  reverential, 
prayerful,  hopeful,  cheerful,  all  the  days  of  his  life,  and 

"  fling  away  ambition ; 
By  that  sin  fell  the  angels ;  how  can  man  then, 
The  image  of  his  Maker,  hope  to  win  by  't?  " 

Hen.  VIIL,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

So,  Goethe  made  the  eternal  "  droning  roar  "  of  the  universe 
sing  through  the  "  huge  bass  "  of  the  son  of  Anak, 

"  Life's  no  resting,  but  a  moving, 
Let  thy  life  be  Deed  on  Deed."  —  Meist.  Trav.,  ch.  xv. 

And  according  to  Shakespeare,  "  whatever  praises  itself  but 
in  the  deed,  devours  the  deed  in  the  praise ;  "  x  or  as  Doctor 
Faust  expounded  out  of  the  sacred  original,  "  In  the  be- 
ginning was  the  Deed  "  ;  or  as  Macbeth  became  thoroughly 
convinced, 

"  The  flighty  purpose  never  is  o'ertook, 
Unless  the  Deed  go  with  it."  — Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

or  as  Philo  Judaeus  interpreted  out  of  the  Old  Testament, 
man  being  created  in  the  image  of  Him,  whose  Word  is  his 
Deed ;  —  or,  according  to  the  old  Bactrian  Zoroaster's 
Ormuzdian  Trinity  of  Thought,  Word,  and  Deed,  as  taught 
by  him  in  the  year  6350  B.  C.2 

The  final  consummation  of  all  philosophy,  in  that  in- 

i  Tro.  and  Or.,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

3  Bunsen's  Egypt's  Place  in  Univ.  Hist.,  III.  472. 


DESTINY.  509 

tended  Sixth  Part  of  the  Great  Instauration,  was  to  have 
for  its  end  and  object,  not  merely  "  contemplative  enjoy- 
ment," but  "  a  complete  power  of  action " ;  for  in  activity 
is  our  life  and  being  and  our  greatest  happiness,  — 

But  that  the  dread  of  something  after  death,  — 

The  undiscover'd  country,  from  whose  bourn 

No  traveller  returns,  —  puzzles  the  will ; 

And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have, 

Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of: 

Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all ; 

And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 

Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought; 

And  enterprizes  of  great  pith  and  moment, 

With  this  regard  their  currents  turn  awry, 

And  lose  the  name  of  action." — Ham.,  Act  III.  8c.  1. 

And  Troilus,  the  youngest  son  of  Priam,  was 

"  a  true  knight ; 
Not  yet  matured,  yet  matchless ;  firm  of  word, 
Speaking  in  deeds,  and  deedless  in  his  tongue ; 


Nor  dignifies  an  impure  thought  with  breath, 
Manly  as  Hector,  but  more  dangerous ; 
For  Hector,  in  his  blaze  of  wrath,  subscribes 
To  tender  objects;  but  he,  in  heat  of  action, 
Is  more  vindicative  than  jealous  love." 

Tr.  and  Cr.,  Act  IV.  8c.  5. 

Indeed,  as  the  last  outcome  of  the  philosophy  of  life,  all 
men  find,  with  Bacon,  that  "  it  is  pleasanter  to  be  doing 
than  to  be  enjoying,"  or,  with  the  play,  that 

"  Things  won  are  done,  joy's  soul  lies  in  the  doing." 

Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  I.  8c.  2. 

But  as  for  the  perfect  intuition  of  divine  things,  as  Berkeley 
delivers  out  of  Plato,  that  must  be  "  the  lot  of  pure  souls, 
beholding  by  a  pure  light,  initiated,  happy,  free  and  unre- 
strained from  these  bodies,  wherein  we  are  imprisoned  like 
oysters.  ...  It  is  Plato's  remark  in  his  Thceatetus,  that 
while  we  sit  still  we  are  never  the  wiser,  but  going  into  the 
river  and  moving  up  and  down,  is  the  way  to  discover  its 
depths  and  shallows.     If  we  exercise  and  bestir  ourselves, 


510  DESTINY. 

we  may  even  here  discover  something."  *  As  Bacon  also 
teaches,  "  much  natural  philosophy  and  wading  deep  into 
it,  will  bring  about  men's  minds  to  religion."  There  is 
need,  too,  of  great  care  and  an  all-seeing  vigilance  ;  for  in 
this  world-stream  in  which  we  swim,  there  is  always  some 
danger  of  drowning. 

While  we  contemplate  the  universe  as  the  present  state 
of  the  divine  thought,  and  all  objects  and  things  in  nature 
as  the  actual  ideas,  conceptions,  or  special  creations  of  the 
divine  mind,  as  form  and  cause  conjoined,  infinite  par- 
ticulars compacted,  combined,  compounded,  crystallized, 
moulded,  and  constructed  into  the  universal  variety  of 
things,  all  bearing  the  stamp  of  the  Master  Architect,  and 
the  whole  full  of  movement  and  motion,  from  infinitely 
rapid  to  infinitely  slow,  an  ever-flowing  stream  in  which  we 
float,  as  it  stands  forth  for  the  time  being  to  the  perception 
of  our  senses  and  faculties,  it  must  be  remembered,  also, 
that  into  this  physical  body  of  ours,  existent  at  any  and 
every  instant  of  time  as  a  part  of  those  creations  and  a  part 
of  the  streaming  flow,  there  is  inspired  or  breathed,  or 
rather,  specially  exhibited  within  us,  from  underneath  and 
within  the  physical  web,  but  really  from  the  same  creative 
source,  and  in  the  same  plane,  as  the  physical  creation 
itself,  this  finite  metaphysical  manifestation  of  that  same 
infinite  power  of  thought  itself,  and  in  essence  identical  with 
it  so  far,  which,  under  its  special  limitations  in  this  finite 
form,  constitutes  the  soul  as  a  special  power  of  thought  of 
the  same  nature,  and  therefore  in  itself  self-acting  and  self- 
directing  cause  so  far,  and,  as  such,  a  self-moving  soul ; 
but  limited  thus  in  degree  of  power  and  in  mode  of  activity 
and  in  manner  of  exhibition  of  itself,  invested  as  it  is  with 
the  surrounding  web  and  fabric  of  the  whole  physical 
universe,  the  rest  of  creation  ;  and  so,  coming  to  have  a 
certain  specific  total  constitution  as  a  created  object  and  a 
special  subject  combined  in  one  —  a  man  ;  because  it  is 
i  Berkeley's  Siris,  Works  (Dublin),  II.  627. 


DESTINY.  511 

most  true,  says  Bacon,  "  that  of  all  things  comprehended 
within  the  compass  of  the  universe,  man  is  a  thing  most 
mixed  and  compounded,  insomuch  that  he  was  well  termed 
by  the  ancients  a  little  world  "  (microcosmus)  :  — 

"  Ros.    What  have  you  done,  my  lord,  with  the  dead  body? 
Ham.    Compounded  it  with  dust  whereto  't  is  kin  " ;  — 

and  Mark  Antony,  describing  the  virtues  of  the  "  great 
Caesar,"  says :  — 

"  His  life  was  gentle ;  and  the  elements 
So  mix'd  in  him,  that  Nature  might  stand  up, 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  This  was  a  man ! " 

Jul.  Get.,  Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

And  so  of  Imogen,  in  the  "  Cymbeline,"  Cloten  says  :  — 

"  I  love  and  hate  her,  for  she  's  fair  and  royal ; 
And  that  she  hath  all  courtly  parts,  more  exquisite 
Than  lady,  ladies,  woman :  from  every  one 
The  best  she  hath ;  and  she,  of  all  compounded, 
Outsells  them  all."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

For  while,  in  this,  we  have  at  bottom  merely  two  man- 
ifestations, or  exertions,  of  one  and  the  same  creative  power 
of  thought,  meeting  from  opposite  directions,  and,  as  it 
were,  a  convolution  of  the  divine  thought  upon  itself,  or  of 
one  conception,  or  thing,  upon  another,  there  is  this  dif- 
ference, nevertheless,  to  be  observed,  that  the  exhibition 
of  the  creative  power,  on  the  physical  side,  is  more  limited 
and  in  some  measure  fixed,  more  or  less  permanently,  and 
so  carried  forward  in  time  in  the  divine  remembrance, 
wherein  is  .the  equilibrium  of  stationary  balance  and  the 
stability  and  permanence  of  the  whole  universe  in  so  far  as 
it  is  ever  stable  and  permanent :  while  that  exhibition  or  ex- 
ertion of  the  same  power,  which  comes  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection (so  to  speak),  and  constitutes  the  essence  of  the  soul, 
has  a  greater  degree  of  liberty,  though  still  limited  in  extent 
and  sphere  of  activity,  and  in  amount  of  power,  by  the  very 
nature  and  mode  of  its  constitution  as  a  speciality  of  think- 
ing essence,  acting  under  the  necessary  laws  of  all  thought, 


512  DESTINY. 

and  being  in  itself  an  exertion  or  exhibition,  in  a  special 
way,  of  the  one  causative  and  creative  power  itself;  as  a 
wave  of  the  ocean  is,  and  is  not  ocean.  And  thus  the  soul 
comes  to  have  a  certain  special  existence  as  a  special  caus- 
ative and  creative  power  of  thought,  when  considered  by 
itself,  together  with  a  special  consciousness  of  its  own,  and 
a  certain  limited  sphere  of  liberty,  free-will,  and  power  of 
choice,  beyond  which  and  the  farthest  range  thereof,  and 
beyond  the  possible  extent  of  practical  effect  of  the  soul's 
own  action,  all  is  the  order  of  divine  providence  in  the  rest 
of  the  universe,  and,  as  such,  absolute  fate  for  this  soul, 
(being  that  fate  which  is  providence,  according  to  Bacon,) 
except  in  so  far  as  the  order  of  that  providence  may  be 
changed  in  any  instant  (if  it  so  please  the  Divine  Majesty) 
to  help  and  save  such  soul  from  its  own  follies  and  the 
innumerable  traps  into  which  it  may  blunder ;  and,  as  con- 
sequent upon  that  liberty,  a  certain  degree  of  moral  ac- 
countability, proportionate  to  the  sphere  of  liberty  and  the 
given  amount  of  power,  and  no  further,  on  pain  of  imme- 
diate, ultimate,  and  inevitable  consequences  just  so  far. 
The  unavoidable,  irresistible,  and  terrible  nature  of  fate,  at 
once  scourge  of  the  vicious,  heedless,  reckless,  and  unwise, 
and  affliction  of  the  wisest  and  best,  wherein  "  unaccom- 
modated man "  may  find  himself  no  more  but  "  a  poor, 
forked  animal,"  or  even  worse,  is  portrayed  in  awful  sub- 
limity in  the  great  play  of  Lear  :  — 

"  Lear.    Now,  all  the  plagues,  that  in  the  pendulous  air 
Hang  fated  o'er  men's  faults,  light  on  thy  daughters ! 

Kent.     He  hath  no  daughters,  sir. 

Lear.    Death,  traitor !  nothing  could  have  subdued  nature 
To  such  a  lowness,  but  his  unkind  daughters.  — 
Is  it  the  fashion,  that  discarded  fathers 
Should  have  thus  little  mercy  on  their  flesh  ? 
Judicious  punishment !  't  was  this  flesh  begot 
Those  pelican  daughters."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

This  author  seems  to  have  had  very  clear  conceptions  of 
the  nature  of  providence  and  fate,  and  of  that  fate  which 


DESTINT.  513 

is  also  providence ;  and  he  was  able  to  illustrate  by  ex- 
amples in  the  grandest  style  of  the  dramatic  art  in  what 
manner  the  blind  man,  or  the  man  with  eyes  which  do  not 
see,  though  wide  open  and  looking  square  into  the  universe 
around  him,  nevertheless,  goes  blundering  on  all  sides  into 
the  traps  of  inevitable  fate :  not  that  it  is  possible  for  the 
farthest-sighted  seer  wholly  to  avoid  them  ;  but  that,  if  this 
lesser  providence  will  take  due  note  of  the  Greater  Provi- 
dence, and  accommodate  himself  to  the  majestic  onward 
flow  of  the  divine  plan,  he  may  have  some  chance  of  keep- 
ing clear  of  the  Juggernautic  wheels  ;  and  at  all  events,  it 
will  be  so  much  the  better  for  him.  And  if,  like  Macbeth, 
he  will  seek  •'  metaphysical  aid,"  he  must  take  care  to  look 
in  the  right  direction  for  it.  Macbeth  had  faith  in  it,  but 
mistook  the  way :  — 

"  Lady  M.  Hie  thee  hither, 

That  I  may  pour  ray  spirits  in  thine  ear, 
And  chastise  with  the  valour  of  my  tongue 
All  that  impedes  thee  from  the  golden  round, 
Which  Fate  and  metaphysical  aid  doth  seem 
To  have  thee  crown'd  withal."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

Macbeth  thought  to  find  it  in  the  vaticinations  of  witches, 
as  many  others  have  sought  to  find  it  in  natural  magic, 
Dodonian  oracles,  pontifical  auguries,  Hebrew  prophecies, 
gospel  inspirations,  mystical  spirit-rappings,  and  such  other 
bottomless  follies  as  should  rather  be  swept  into  the  limbo 
of  Paracelsus,  and  only  discovered  his  mistake  when  it  was 
too  late :  — 

"  Macb.    Accursed  be  the  tongue  that  tells  me  so, 

For  it  hath  cow'd  my  better  part  of  man : 

And  be  these  juggling  fiends  no  more  believ'd, 

That  palter  with  us  in  a  double  sense ; 

That  keep  the  word  of  promise  to  our  ear, 

And  break  it  to  our  hope."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  7. 

There  were  to  be,  in  Solomon's  House,  "  houses  of  deceits 
of  the  senses,  where  we  represent  all  manner  of  feats  of 
juggling,  false  apparitions,  impostures,  and  illusions ;  and 

their  fallacies." 

33 


514  DESTINY. 

Hence  we  have,  added  to  the  creations  and  doings  of  the 
divine  mind,  as  such,  the  special  creations,  perceivings,  and 
doings  of  the  finite  soul,  as  such  ;  and  in  true  statement, 
the  universe  is  the  thought  of  God,  the  uncreated  thinker, 
plus  the  thought  of  all  finite  created  thinkers ;  for  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  is  to  be  included,  down  to  the  last  point  where 
a  self-directing  cause  appears  in  action  under  a  special  con- 
sciousness, however  limited ;  where  conscious  mind  passes 
into  mere  unconscious  instinctive  function,  existing  and 
being  moved  under  the  divine  consciousness  alone  ;  where, 
as  Bacon  expresses  it,  "  art  or  man  is  added  to  the  uni- 
verse " ;  and  "  it  must  almost  necessarily  be  concluded," 
he  continues,  "  that  the  human  soul  is  endued  with  provi- 
dence, not  without  the  example,  intention,  and  authority  of 
the  greater  providence."  l  This  art  has  as  wide  a  range  in 
nature  as  the  special  creator :  in  man,  it  becomes  a  kind  of 
lesser  providence.  "  Man,  too,"  says  another  philosopher, 
"  creates  and  conquers  kingdoms  from  the  barren  realms 
of  Darkness,  to  increase  the  happiness,  and  dignit)7,  and 
power  of  all  men."  2  All  art  is  creation,  as  Plato  said  : 
"  For  that  which  is  the  cause  of  anything  coming  out  of 
non-existence  into  existence  is  altogether  a  creation.  So 
that  all  the  operations  effected  by  all  the  arts  are  creations ; 
and  all  the  makers  of  them  are  creators, are  poets 

This  art  may  begin  in  a  microscopic  animalcule,  or  if  not 
there,  in  the  least  ganglioned  structure  in  which  the  eye  of 
science  can  detect  a  self-acting  and  self-directing  cause.  It 
may  live  the  life  of  an  encrinite,  and  find  its  whole  scope 
of  activity  in  a  stony  cup.  It  may  rule  on  the  bosom  of 
a  swarm  of  organic  instincts  in  the  bee.  It  may  have  the 
eyes,  fins,  ink-bag,  and  hydraulic  apparatus  of  the  cuttle- 
fish, and  swim  the  ocean,  being  to  some  extent  its  own 

1  De  Sap.  Vet.,  Works  (Boston),  XIII.  44. 

2  Carlyle's  Life  of  Schiller,  239. 

8  Banquet,  Works  (Bonn),  III.  539. 


DESTINY.  515 

pilot  and  protector  ;  or  it  may  have  a  higher  organization, 
a  greater  amount  of  power,  and  a  greater  range  of  think- 
ing faculty,  in  the  fish,  reptile,  bird,  mammal,  ape,  or  oldest 
Tertiary,  or  Quaternary,  inventor  of  the  flint  axe,  or  ear- 
liest Papuan,  Negro,  or  Titicacan,  even  up  to  the  highest 
intelligence,  widest  range  of  liberty,  and  largest  amount  of 
power  of  thought  and  action  in  the  latest  and  best  Cauca- 
sian man  ;  and,  in  each  degree  of  the  great  scale  of  bein<j, 
have  its  own  appropriate  share  in  the  management  of  its 
own  affairs,  and,  in  some  sort,  the  affairs  of  the  universe  ; 
acting  so  far  on  its  own  responsibility,  and  helping,  or  as  it 
may  be,  not  helping,  God  create  a  world  of  order,  art,  ex- 
cellence, and  beauty.  So,  from  the  beginning,  man  has 
been  a  creator,  according  to  his  ability,  of  stone  axe,  bronze 
axe,  iron  axe  ;  bow  and  arrow,  canoe,  and  skin-tent ;  hut, 
plough,  and  shop  ;  picture-writing,  hieroglyphics,  alphabets  ; 
house,  temple,  and  city ;  civil  polity,  sacred  scripture,  and 
jurisprudence  ;  poetry,  history,  literature  ;  science,  arts, 
commerce  ;  philosophy  and  religious  culture ;  and  the  sum 
total  of  human  civilization  on  this  globe  ;  for  all  is  the 
work  of  his  art,  invention,  and  industry,  and  a  creation  of 
his  thought.  There  is  no  end  to  his  creative  function  ;  and 
his  highest  happiness,  and  his  greatest  good,  is  in  being 
a  creator.  Carlyle  agrees  with  the  old  monks,  that  "  work 
is  worship  ; "  and,  certainly,  Plato  was  not  far  from  the 
same  teaching,  when  he  said :  "  But  I  will  lay  this  down, 
that  the  things  which  are  said  to  be  made  by  nature,  are 
(made)  by  divine  art ;  but  that  the  things,  which  are  com- 
posed from  these  by  men,  are  produced  by  human  art ;  and 
that  according  to  this  assertion,  there  are  two  kinds  of  the 
making  art,  one  human,  and  the  other  divine." 1 

Bacon  appears  to  have  entertained  the  same  opinion  ; 

and  carrying  this  philosophy  of  art  into  his  own  studies  of 

nature,  he  concludes,  after  much  consideration,  "  to  assign 

the  Natural  History  of  Arts  as  a  branch  of  Natural  History, 

i  Sqpkist,  Works  (Bohn),  III.  180. 


516  DESTINY. 

because  an  opinion  hath  a  long  time  gone  current  as  if  art 
were  some  different  thing  from  nature,  and  artificial  from  nat- 
ural." *  But  he  has  ascertained  that  "  nature  is  either  free, 
unfolding  itself  in  its  own  accustomed  course  as  in  the  heav- 
ens, in  animals  and  plants,  and  in  the  whole  apparatus  of 
the  universe ;  or,  by  the  perverse  and  intractable  qualities 
of  matter  and  the  violence  of  impediments,  it  is  detruded 
from  its  own  proper  state,  as  in  monstrosities ;  or,  again,  it 
is  constrained,  fashioned,  and,  as  it  were,  made  anew,  by 
the  art  and  work  of  man,  as  in  artificial  productions  "  ;  that 
these,  again,  differ  from  the  natural,  not  in  "  the  form  and 
essence  "  of  the  thing  itself,  but  only  in  respect  of  "  the 
efficient  cause,"  or  the  "  restrained  means  "  ;  that  man  has 
no  power  over  the  nature  of  things,  beyond  a  power  of 
moving,  so  as  to  apply,  or  remove,  natural  bodies ;  and 
therefore,  when  natural  bodies  are  applied,  or  removed, 
conjoining  (as  they  say)  the  active  with  the  passive,  man 
can  do  everything :  where  this  is  not  granted,  nothing. 
Nor  does  it  matter,  if  things  are  placed  in  order  for  a  cer- 
tain effect,  whether  it  be  done  by  man  or  without  man." 
And  so  we  see,  that  "  while  Nature  governs  all,  these  three 
things  are  in  subordination,  —  the  course  of  Nature,  the  de- 
viation of  Nature,  and  art  or  man  added  to  things."  So 
far  the  De  Augmentis ;  and  in  the  Advancement,  he  lays 
down,  also,  that  u  it  is  the  duty  of  art  to  perfect  and  exalt 
nature  " :  — 

"  so,  o'er  that  art, 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art 
That  Nature  makes."  —  Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

As  we  learn  from  the  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  the  story 
of  Atalanta  was  "  an  excellent  allegory,  relating  to  the  con- 
test of  Art  and  Nature  ;  for  Art,  which  is  meant  by  Ata- 
lanta, is  in  itself,  if  nothing  stand  in  the  way,  far  swifter 
than  Nature,  and  as  we  may  say,  the  better  runner,  and 
comes  sooner  to  the  goal.  For  this  may  be  seen  in  almost 
i  Be  Aug.  Scient.,  II.  c.  2. 


DESTINY.  517 

everything ;  you  see,  that  fruit  grows  slowly  from  the  ker- 
nel, swiftly  from  the  graft :  "  — 

"  You  see,  sweet  maid,  we  many 
A  gentler  scion  to  the  wildest  stock  " ;  — 

but,  « it  is  no  wonder  if  Art  cannot  outstrip  Nature,  but 
according  to  the  agreement  and  condition  of  the  contest, 
put  her  to  death  or  destroy  her ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  Art 
remains  subject  to  Nature  as  the  wife  is  subject  to  the 
husband."  And,  with  but  a  slight  change  of  the  word  out- 
strip for  outwent,  we  may  discover  the  same  idea  in  these 
lines  of  the  "  Cymbeline  " :  — 

"fach.  The  chimney 

Is  south  the  chamber;  and  the  chimney-piece, 
Chaste  Dian  bathing:  never  saw  I  figures 
So  likely  to  report  themselves :  the  cutter 
Was  another  nature  dumb,  —  outwent  her, 
Motion  and  breath  left  out."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

Darwin,  prying  into  this  subject  from  a  merely  geological 
point  of  view,  and  with  the  help  of  all  that  science  had 
done  for  him  since  Bacon's  time,  discovers  only  that,  by  a 
certain  kind  of  manipulation  and  tampering,  he  can  pro- 
duce all  manner  of  domestic  breeds  and  varieties,  and,  in 
short,  almost,  if  not  quite,  an  actual  difference  of  species : 
whence  he  concludes,  that  what  creates  a  difference  of  species 
in  nature  is,  not  any  art  in  nature,  but  a  certain  blind  mani- 
pulation of  mere  circumstances  and  conditions,  —  variation, 
divergence,  inheritance,  natural  selection,  struggle  for  life, 
and  the  like,  —  on  a  basis  of  dead  substratum  and  the 
properties  thereof,  "  laws  acting " 1  included ;  as  if,  these 
being  given,  an  animal  could  create  himself  as  easily  as 
wink.  It  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  him,  that  any 
efficient  and  essential  cause,  or  creative  power,  was  at  all 
necessary  in  the  business ;  much  less,  that  he  should  under- 
take to  inquire  what  that  cause  is,  or  the  nature  of  it, 
though  so  plainly  in  action  there  under  his  very  eyes.  Much 
1  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  (New  York,  1860),  424. 


518  DESTINY. 

better  and  decidedly  more  Baconian,  is  the  philosophy  of 

the  poet,  Cowper :  — 

"  But  how  should  matter  occupy  a  charge, 
Dull  as  it  is,  and  satisfy  a  law 
So  vast  in  its  demands,  unless  impell'd 
To  ceaseless  service  by  a  ceaseless  force, 
And  under  pressure  of  some  conscious  cause  ? 
The  Lord  of  all,  himself  through  all  diffus'd, 
Sustains,  and  is  the  life  of  all  that  lives. 
Nature  is  but  a  name  for  au  effect, 
Whose  cause  is  God."  —  Task,  Book  VI. 

Darwin  reasons  thus :  A  species  can  be  made  to  vary : 
therefore  species  is  not  immutable.  Good.  But  Agassiz 
will  not  agree  that  Mr.  Darwin  can  manipulate  a  new 
species  into  being ;  but  only  a  transient  variety,  though 
presenting  differences  as  wide  as  a  difference  of  species, 
not  a  permanent  species  in  nature ;  and  he  thinks  the  logic 
should  run  thus :  Man  manipulates  a  temporary  variety  into 
being ;  ergo,  God  created  the  permanent  species.  Good, 
again.  But  what  if  the  temporary  variety  should  continue 
permanent  for  a  thousand  years  ?  or  what  if  the  permanent 
species  should  actually  continue  to  change  through  the  next 
geological  period  ?  According  to  Bacon,  this  art  of  ma- 
nipulation, or  placing  things  in  order  for  a  certain  effect, 
whether  by  man,  or  without  man,  is  not,  after  all,  anything 
different  from  nature,  nor  artificial  from  natural,  in  respect 
of  the  form  and  essence  of  the  thing :  the  art  itself  is  in 
the  "order,  operation,  and  Mind  of  Nature."  Man,  with 
his  manipulation,  can  only  help  a  little. 

Now,  in  the  year  1611,  we  find  Sir  Francis  Bacon  in  full 
possession  of  Gorhambury  and  the  beautiful  gardens  there, 
always  a  student  and  lover  of  Nature  and  a  curious  ob- 
server of  her  ways,  in  gardens  or  elsewhere,  now  diligently 
experimenting  upon  the  natures  of  plants,  flowers,  and 
fruits,  marshalling  in  their  proper  seasons  rosemary  and 
rue,  primrose,  violets,  cowslips,  hyssop  and  germander,  — 

"  Hot  lavender,  mints,  savory,  marjoram; 
The  marigold,  that  goes  to  bed  with  th'  sun, 
And  with  him  rises,  weeping; " 


DESTINY.  519 

practising  in  the  art  of  grafting  and  the  art  of  manipula- 
tion for  producing  new  varieties,  "carnations  of  several 
stripes  "  *  and  "  streak'd  gilliflowers  "  ; 2  trying  "  what 
natures  do  accomplish  what  colours,  for  by  that  you  shall 
have  light  how  to  induce  colours  by  producing  those 
natures  ;  "  grafting  "  several  scions  upon  several  boughs  of 
a  stock  "  ;  gathering  "  the  excellent  dew  of  knowledge,  dis- 
tilling and  contriving  it  out  of  particulars  natural  and 
artificial,  as  the  flowers  of  the  field  and  garden."  8  He  has 
lately  published  the  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  and  learned 
from  the  fable  of  Atalanta  as  well  as  from  his  own  ex- 
perience, that  art  is  swifter  than  nature,  yet  cannot  out- 
strip nature,  but  must  remain  subject  to  her,  as  the  wife  is 
subject  to  the  husband. 

The  nuptials  of  the  young  Princess  Elizabeth,  afterwards 
Queen  of  Bohemia,  are  about  to  be  celebrated  at  Court, 
with  masques,  triumphs,  and  stage-plays  for  many  months. 
The  succession  to  the  Attorney- General's  place  as  well  as 
fables  and  gilliflowers,  the  art  of  politics  as  well  as  the  art 
of  nature,  is  constantly  running  in  his  mind.  He  is  now  in 
the  mood  for  attempting  another  model,  and  the  "  "Winter's 
Tale  "  shortly  makes  its  appearance.  As  usual  he  snatches 
up  any  old  romance  that  will  serve  for  the  germ  of  the  story, 
so  much  the  better  if  it  be  well-known  and  popular ;  and 
the  popular  tale  of  "  Dorastus  and  Fawnia  "  is  laid  hold  of 
for  the  present  occasion.  Perdita,  the  lost  child  of  the  King 
of  Sicily,  is  cast  away  upon  ■  the  deserts  of  Bohemia,"  — 
his  Bohemia  will  have  shores  if  need  be  ;  why  not  ?  —  and 
the  young  Perdita  shall  be  brought  up  in  a  cottage  among 
clowns  as  the  daughter  of  an  old  shepherd ;  and  this  "  gent- 
ler scion,"  growing  upon  "  the  wildest  stock,"  will  furnish  a 
happy  instance  of  the  grafting  art  in  the  higher  kind.    But 

1  Natural  History,  §§  501,  607,  510. 

2  Winter's  Tale,  Act  I V.  8c.  3.    Mr.  White  reads  "  gillivors,"  which  is  the 
old  form  of  the  word. 

*  Advancement,  Book  II. 


520  DESTINY. 

at  sweet  sixteen,  this  "  bud  of  nobler  race  "  shall  be  clearly 
distinguishable  still  from  "  a  bark  of  baser  kind,"  at  least 
to  a  king's  son  Florizel ;  but  "  the  rule  is  certain,  that  plants 
for  want  of  culture  degenerate  to  be  baser  in  the  same 
kind,"  though 

"  Wholesome  berries  thrive  and  ripen  best, 
Neighbour' d  by  fruit  of  baser  quality."  —  Sonnet. 

As  is  his  wont,  he  will  himself  put  on  the  mask,  and  slip 
into  the  scene  in  all  characters,  more  especially,  here,  in  the 
character  of  Polixenes,  King  of  Bohemia,  and,  into  the 
mouth  of  this  blooming  child  of  nature,  returned  fresh  from 
her  "rustic  garden,"  with  whole  handfuls  of  the  "fairest 
flowers  o'  the  season,"  rosemary  and  rue,  — 

"  Carnations,  and  streak'd  gilliflowers, 
Which  some  call  Nature's  bastards,"  — 

he  will  put  the  best  results  of  his  latest  meditations  upon 
the  art  and  mystery  of  Nature.     For  even  Perdita  had 

"  heard  it  said 
There  is  an  art  which,  in  their  piedness,  shares 
With  great  creating  Nature. 

Pol.  Say  there  be ; 

Yet  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean :  so,  o'er  that  art, 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art, 
That  Nature  makes.    You  see,  sweet  maid,  we  marry 
A  gentler  scion  to  the  wildest  stock ; 
And  make  conceive  a  bark  of  baser  kind 
By  bud  of  nobler  race.    This  is  an  art 
Which  does  mend  Nature,  —  change  it  rather;  but 
The  art  itself  is  Nature. 

Per.  So  it  is. 

Pol.    Then  make  your  garden  rich  in  gilliflowers, 
And  do  not  call  them  bastards."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

In  the  "  Natural  History,"  identical  ideas,  words,  and  ex- 
pressions occur,  if  indeed  any  possible  doubt  could  remain 
of  the  identity  of  the  philosopher  and  the  poet  here  ;  as  for 
instance  :  — 

"  First,  therefore,  you  must  make  account,  that  if  you  will  have  one  plant 
change  into  another,  you  must  have  the  nourishment  overrule  the  seed :".... 


DESTINY.  521 

"  This  I  conceive  also,  that  all  esculent  and  garden  herbs,  set  upon  the 
tops  of  hills,  will  prove  more  medicinal,  though  less  esculent  than  they  were 
before." 

"  The  second  rule  shall  be,  to  bury  some  few  seeds  of  the  herb  you  would 
change  amongst  other  seeds ;  " 

"  In  which  operation  the  process  of  nature  still  will  be  (as  I  conceive),  not 
that  the  herb  you  work  upon  should  draw  the  juice  of  the  foreign  herb  (for 
that  opinion  we  have  formerly  rejected),  but  there  will  be  a  new  confection 
of  mould,  which  perhaps  will  alter  the  seed,  and  yet  not  to  the  kind  of  the 
former  herb." 

"  The  sixth  rule  shall  be,  to  make  plants  grow  out  of  the  sun  or  open  air; 
for  that  is  a  great  mutation  in  nature,  and  may  induce  a  change  in  the 
seed." 

"  Some  experiment  would  be  made,  how  by  art  to  make  plants  more  last- 
ing than  their  ordinary  period."  —  Nat.  HisL,  §  527,  531,  587. 

Here,  the  identity  of  the  idea  is  clear  enough,  and  the 
same  use  of  the  words  change,  baser  kind,  and  art,  is  quite 
palpable  ;  and  especially  the  outcropping  of  the  same  word 
conceive  is  one  of  those  singular  instances  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  vocabulary  of  the  same  author  will  pass  into 
writings  of  a  very  different  nature,  but  upon  kindred  topics, 
all  unconsciously,  perhaps,  to  the  author  himself. 

We  know  from  many  parts  of  Bacon's  writings,  as  well 
as  from  his  personal  biography,  that  he  took  great  delight 
in  gardens  and  flowers.  The  Essay  on  Gardens  is  alone 
sufficient  to  show  that  he  had  a  delicate  appreciation  of 
this  kind  of  beauty,  as  well  as  an  exquisite  taste  in  the  art, 
of  which  he  was  himself  a  great  master.  He  begins  by 
saying,  "  God  Almighty  first  planted  a  garden ; "  and  he 
speaks  of  it  as  "  the  purest  of  human  pleasures."  He  holds 
that  "  there  ought  to  be  gardens  for  all  the  months  of  the 
year ;  in  which  severally  things  of  beauty  may  be  then  in 
season  " ;  and  he  proceeds  to  name  the  flowers  proper  to 
each  month  and  season.  Now,  the  flowers  named  in  the 
cottage-scene  of  the  fourth  act  of  the  "  Winter's  Tale  " 
appear  to  have  been  drawn  from  one  and  the  same  cal- 
endar, and  in  about  the  same  order  as  those  of  the  Essay, 
as  thus :  — 

"  For  December,  and  January,  and  the  latter  part  of  November,  you  must 


522  DESTINY. 

take  such  things  as  are  green  all  winter:   holly,  ivy; rosemary; 

lavender; germander;  and  myrtles,  if  they  be  stoved;  and  sweet 

marj  oram  warm  set : "  — 

"Per.  Reverend  sirs, 

For  you  there's  rosemary  and  rue ;  these  keep 
Seeming  and  savour  all  the  Winter  long: 

Pol. Shepherdess, 

(A  fair  one  are  you,)  well  you  tit  our  ages 
With  flowers  of  Winter." 
"  And  trial  would  be  made  of  grafting  of  rosemary,  and  bays,  and  box, 
upon  a  holly-stock;  because  they  are  plants  that  come  all  winter."  —  Nat. 
Hist.,  §  592. 

"  There  followeth,  for  the  latter  part  of  January  and  February,  the  meze- 

reon-tree,  which  then  blossoms; primroses;  anemones;  the  early 

tulippa; For  March,  there  come  violets,  specially  the  single  blue, 

which  are  the  earliest ;  the  yellow  daffodil ;  the  daisy ; sweet  briar. 

In  April  follow  the  double  white  violet;  the  wall-flower;  the  stock  gilli- 
flower;  the  cowslip;  flower-de-luces,  and  lilies  of  all  natures;  roseinary-flow- 
ers;  the  tulippa;  the  double  piony ;  the  pale  daffodil ; " 

"Per.  Out,  alas ! 

You  'd  be  so  lean,  that  blasts  of  January 

Would  blow  you  through  and  through.  —  Now,  my  fair'st  friend, 
I  would  I  had  some  flowers  o'  th'  Spring,  that  might 
Become  your  time  of  day;  and  yours;  and  yours; 

daffodils, 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty;  violets,  dim, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea's  breath ;  pale  primroses, 
That  die  unmarried,  ere  they  can  behold 
Bright  Phoebus  in  his  strength,  a  malady 
Most  incident  to  maids ;  bold  oxlips,  and 
The  crown-imperial;  lilies  of  all  kinds, 
The  flower-de-luce  being  one!"  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

"  In  May  and  June  come  pinks  of  all  sorts,  specially  the  bluish  pink : 

roses  of  all  kinds,  except  the  musk  which  comes  later: the  French 

marigold ; lavender  in  flowers In  July  come  gilliflowers 

of  all  varieties; 

"Per.                Sir,  the  year  growing  ancient,  — 
Not  yet  on  Summer's  death,  nor  on  the  birth 
Of  trembling  Winter,  —  the  fairest  flowers  o'  iti  season 
Are  our  carnations,  and  streak'd  gilliflowers, 
Which  some  call  Nature's  bastards :  of  that  kind 
Our  rustic  garden  's  barren ;  and  I  care  not 
To  get  slips  of  them 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.    •     523 

Here 's  flowers  for  you ; 
Hot  lavender,  mint,  savory,  marjoram ; 
The  marigold,  that  goes  to  bed  with  th'  sun : 
And  with  him  rises,  weeping:  these  are  flowers 
Of  middle  Summer,  and  I  think  they  're  given 
To  men  of  middle  age."  —  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

And  as  another  instance  of  the  source  of  Bacon's  met- 
aphors, it  may  be  noted  that  in  a  letter  to  Burghley  he  uses 
this  expression  :  "  though  it  bear  no  fruit,  yet  it  is  one  of 
the  fairest  flowers  of  my  poor  estate  ;  "  1  which  is  repeated 
in  another  letter  of  the  same  year  thus :  "  I  will  present 
your  Lordship  with  the  fairest  flower  of  my  estate,  though 
it  yet  bear  no  fruit."  2 

Mr.  Spedding  notices  these  resemblances,  and  observes, 
that  if  this  Essay  had  been  contained  in  the  earlier  edition, 
some  expressions  would  have  made  him  suspect  that  Shake- 
speare had  been  reading  it 8 :  and  well  they  might  But  it 
was  not  printed  until  1625,  and,  of  course,  William  Shake- 
speare could  never  have  seen  it.  Nor  is  it  at  all  probable 
that  Bacon  would  have  anything  to  learn  of  William  Shake- 
speare concerning  the  science  of  gardening.  In  short, 
when  the  Essay  and  the  play  are  read  together,  written  as 
they  both  are,  in  that  singular  style  of  elegance,  brevity, 
and  beauty,  and  depth  of  science,  which  is  so  markedly 
characteristic  of  this  author,  whether  in  verse  or  prose,  it 
becomes  next  to  impossible  to  doubt  of  his  identity. 

§    3.    THE    GREATER   PROVIDENCE. 

Whence  it  may  be  understood  how  it  must  be  impossible 
that  any  knowledge  out  of  the  foreknowledge  of  God,  or 
through  angels,  daemons,  or  spirits,  or  any  information  of 
his  actual  thoughts,  intentions,  purposes,  or  future  prov- 
idence, through  divination,  influxion,  inspiration,  or  any 
kind  of  special  illumination,  can  be  imparted,  or  directly 

l  Letter  (1597),  H  Spedding,  52. 
«  Letter  to  Egerton  (1597),  Ibid.  62. 
»  Works  (Boston),  XII.  235. 


524     '     THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

communicated,  to  man  from  within,  behind,  and  beyond  the 
origin  and  source  of  his  own  soul.  Indeed,  in  this  sense 
of  foreknowledge,  there  is  none  possible  with  God  himself, 
within  the  power  of  human  conception  ;  for,  with  him,  to 
think  and  know  is  to  create  and  bring  into  actual  existence 
what  is  thought  and  known.  The  actual  present  state  of 
his  thought,  in  any  instant,  is  the  real  universe  that  lies 
before  us  and  around  us.  His  purposes  therein  are  re- 
vealed to  us  only  in  the  providential  order  and  scientific 
history  of  the  past  and  present  universe.  The  future  con- 
tinuity of  the  creation  must  depend,  for  the  actual  details 
thereof,  upon  his  future  thought  and  the  plan  and  purpose 
that  may  be  therein,  in  the  freedom  of  his  power  or  will ; 
and  it  must  be  forever  impossible  to  be  foreknown  to  Him, 
or  revealed  to  us.  Man  premeditates  :  God  creates.  His 
thought,  his  word,  is  his  deed.  Though  man's  thought  be 
his  deed,  in  respect  of  his  own  creative  thinking,  and  his 
imaginations,  his  conceptions,  according  to  Spinoza,  u  re- 
garded in  themselves,  contain  no  error,"  it  is  not  always  so, 
when  regarded  with  reference  to  things  external  to  them, 
nor  in  his  execution  of  his  thought  into  outward  act,  nor 
in  his  judgment  of  the  works  of  other  men  ;  much  less,  in 
his  conceptions  of  the  works  and  providence  of  God.  The 
difference  between  the  human  mind  and  the  divine  mind 
must  no  more  be  lost  sight  of  than  their  identity,  in  so  far 
as  identical.  The  common  conception  of  Deity  as  of  a 
being  who  reasons,  deliberates,  premeditates,  and  thinks 
within  himself,  before  acting  and  creating ;  who  frames 
ideals,  types,  and  archetypes  in  his  mind,  first,  and  then 
moulds  the  chaos  of  dead  matter  into  some  degree  of  con- 
formity with  them,  and  gradually  builds  up  a  universe  upon 
a  preconceived  and  well-considered  plan,  like  a  common 
carpenter,  who  is  angry  and  pleased,  is  offended  and  pro- 
pitiated, and  rewards  and  punishes,  after  the  manner  of 
men,  is  a  weak  invention,  a  mere  waking  dream,  and  the 
offspring  of  superficial  and  uncritical  thinking. 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.  525 

Nor  much  better  is  that  other  view,  that  takes  the 
universe,  indeed,  to  have  been  "  the  free  conception  of  the 
Almighty  Intellect,"  but  as  having  been  "  matured  in  his 
thought  before  it  was  manifested  in  tangible  forms,"  as  if 
there  had  been  "premeditation  prior  to  the  act  of  creation,"  1 
and  concludes  from  a  consideration  of  the  entire  order  of 
the  animal  kingdom,  that  "  the  whole  was  devised  in  order 
to  place  man  at  the  head,"  and  that  "  millions  of  ages  ago, 
his  coming  was  seen  as  the  culmination  of  the  thought, 
which  devised  the  fishes  and  the  lowest  radiata."  2  For, 
duly  considered,  there  is  here  no  other  anticipation  neces- 
sarily, or  logically,  to  be  inferred  than  this :  that  when  the 
first  ideal  type,  for  instance,  the  cell,  wherein  is  the  funda- 
mental unity  of  type  of  the  whole  animal  kingdom,  was 
conceived  and  executed  as  one  act  in  the  actual  creation 
of  the  first  animal  cell  that  was  created,  the  entire  ideal 
architectonic  of  the  whole  kingdom,  man  included,  was  then, 
as  it  may  truly  be  said,  merely  within  the  bounds  of  the 
possible  for  the  creative  power,  acting  under  the  necessary 
laws  of  thought  and  in  accordance  with  the  divine  nature 
and  in  consistency  with  his  attributes  of  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, within  the  scope  and  scheme  of  that  most  general 
type,  whenever  it  should  please  the  Divine  Majesty  further 
to  conceive  and  execute  other  less  general  types  in  other 
actual  details  (still  falling  under  that  most  general  type,  if 
it  should  so  please  him),  in  the  order  of  his  providence  in 
the  work  of  creating  an  animal  kingdom.  But  until  so 
actually  conceived  and  brought  into  existence  as  a  part  of 
his  thought,  for  the  rest  uncreated,  it  need  be  considered 
only  as  being  as  yet  in  possibility,  and  still  lying  in  all  the 
possibilities  of  his  thinking  existence,  not  yet  thought  out 
of  non-existence  even  into  the  divine  contemplation  in  any 
sense  of  preliminary  premeditation  ;  for  He  is  that  absolute 
Power  of  Thought,  with  whom  "  being  and  knowing "  are 

1  Agassiz's  Conlrib.  to  Nat.  Hist,  of  N.  Amer.,  I.  9. 
3  Agassiz's  Remarks,  (Am.  ScL  Disc.  1856.) 


526  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

one,  whose  knowledge  is  that  Sapience  which  is  at  once 
both  knowledge  and  wisdom  in  all  that  is,  or  will  be, 
created,  and  with  whom,  to  think  is  to  create  just  so  far 
and  no  further ;  and  so,  in  like  manner,  of  any  secondary 
and  subordinate  type,  or  less  general  ideal  plan,  in  any 
branching  direction,  in  time  and  space,  of  Branch,  Class, 
Order,  Genus,  Species,  or  Individual,  even  to  the  minutest 
details,  in  the  actual  order  of  their  creation  and  succession, 
existence  and  disappearance,  in  geological  consecutiveness 
and  progression  ;  individuals,  only,  having  actual  existence 
in  time  and  space,  form  and  cause  conjoined,  so  as  to 
present  "  tangible  forms  "  and  physical  existence  in  nature, 
recognizable  to  human  senses,  scopes,  instruments,  and  all 
the  methods  of  experimental  science,  and  copyable  and 
conceivable  to  the  human  mind,  no  less  and  no  more  than 
those  intangible  ideal  and  more  general  forms,  types,  and 
archetypes,  which  fall  within  the  scope  of  the  intellectual 
vision  and  metaphysical  science  only  ;  for  this  science  alone 
can  discover,  or  see,  the  transcendental  architectonic  of  the 
universe.  And  we  have  on  the  geological  tablets  and  in 
living  nature  a  record  sufficient,  when  thoroughly  studied, 
to  enable  us  to  penetrate  the  mystery,  to  see  through  nature 
up  to  nature's  author,  and  finally  to  grasp  a  true  science 
of  the  whole  creation  by  that  way,  whenever  we  shall  have 
arrived  with  Bacon  at  a  knowledge  of  "  the  order,  operation, 
and  Mind  of  Nature  "  and  that  truth  which,  by  the  oath  of 
Lear,  was  to  be  Cordelia's  dower :  — 

"Lear.    So  young,  and  so  untender? 

Cor.    So  young,  my  lord,  and  true. 

Lear.    Let  it  be  so:  thy  truth,  then,  be  thy  dower: 
For,  by  the  sacred  radiance  of  the  sun, 
The  mysteries  of  Hecate,  and  the  night, 
By  all  the  operation  of  the  orbs, 
From  whom  we  do  exist,  and  cease  to  be, 
Here  I  disclaim  all  my  paternal  care, 
Propinquity  and  property  of  blood, 
And  as  a  stranger  to  my  heart  and  me, 
Hold  thee  from  this  forever."  —  Lear,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.         527 

But  we  should  take  care,  also,  with  Geoffroy  Saint-IIilaire, 
not  to  lend  to  God  any  intentions,  but  to  observe  and  study 
the  fact,  and  read  the  plan  and  intent  therein,  as  a  "  rev- 
elation and  true  vision  "  of  the  actual  thought  of  the  Creator 
as  it  is  found  presented  to  us  in  the  existent  creation,  or  in 
what  remains  of  any  past  creation,  resting  assured,  all  the 
while,  that  no  thought,  nor  creation,  is  at  all  possible  with- 
out plan  and  purpose  therein.  Nor  need  we  expect  to  find 
any  record,  fossil  or  other,  of  any  past  creation  that  had  no 
plan  in  it,  nor  imagine  that  any  future  creation  will  be 
given  without  a  plan  therein  ;  though  there  has  certainly 
been,  and  doubtless  there  will  be,  more  or  less  of  continuous 
change  of  plan  in  respect  of  the  details,  parts,  or  even  whole 
of  any  given  creation.  And  in  respect  of  the  fossil  order 
and  succession  of  animals,  through  the  changing  surfaces 
of  past  time,  as  in  respect  of  the  existing  order  and  succes- 
sion of  them,  in  space,  on  the  present  surface  of  the  globe, 
still  as  ever  changing,  when  we  collect,  arrange,  and  classify 
the  facts  in  a  scientific  manner,  according  to  the  ideal 
architectonic  which  our  minds  are  capable  of  discovering 
in  them,  we  may  then  find  revealed  to  us  therein  what  was 
the  plan  and  purpose  of  the  Creator  in  them  so  far,  and 
what  was  the  actual  course  of  change  of  plan  and  purpose 
in  them  as  they  successively  came  into  existence  and  dis- 
appeared, without  need  of  any  supposed  premeditation 
further  concerning  them. 

And  herein,  also,  we  may  see  how  the  thought  of  the 
Creator  is  indeed  simultaneous  in  respect  of  any  whole 
present  state  thereof,  and  also  consecutive,  no  less  than 
human  thought,  in  respect  of  all  change  therein  ;  inasmuch 
as  it  is  continually  streaming  into  time  and  space  in  nature, 
and  continually  vanishing  out,  or  not  vanishing,  into  ob- 
livion, according  as  it  may,  or  may  not,  be  held  in  existence 
for  the  time  being  in  the  continuity  of  the  Divine  Remem- 
brance. And  of  all  this  Plato  had  some  knowledge,  though 
not  in  that  more  exact  and  particular  detail  of  natural  laws 


528  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

and  physical  facts  in  which  our  modern  science  also  dis- 
covers it ;  for  he,  at  least,  among  the  ancients,  taught  much 
the  same  doctrine,  when  he  said  that  "  that  which  is  the 
cause  of  anything  coming  out  of  non-existence  into  existence 
is  altogether  a  creation  ;  "  that  all  creation  is  a  work  of  art, 
divine  or  human  ;  and  that  a  destructive  change  of  thought 
whereby  something  vanishes  out  of  existence  into  non- 
existence, — "  do  we  not  call  this  oblivion,  Simmias,  the 
loss  of  knowledge  "  ? 

The  fact  of  the  Divine  Existence,  his  nature,  power, 
laws,  wisdom,  goodness,  love,  and  perfection,  being  eternal 
facts,  or  unalterable  necessities,  or  unchangeable  attributes 
of  his  being,  must  be  always  known  to  him  ;  and  they  may 
be  always  known,  foreknown,  and  predicted  by  us  with  un- 
erring certainty ;  and  likewise  even  the  general  stability  of 
the  universe,  the  revolution  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  an 
eclipse,  or  other  like  natural  phenomena,  so  far  as  neces- 
sarily involved  in  that  nature,  those  laws,  and  those  attri- 
butes, and  so  far  as  necessarily  implied  in  that  general 
stability.  So  far  as  these  things  depend  upon  the  necessary 
laws  of  thought  and  those  unchanging  attributes,  and  so 
far  as  in  respect  of  them  the  Divine  Remembrance  is  ever 
continuous,  our  knowledge  of  them  may  amount  to  definite 
and  certain  prevision  ;  for  of  these  things  knowledge  is 
foreknowledge  always :  — 

"  Imog.    Who  ?  thy  lord  ?  that  is  my  lord :  Leonatus. 
O,  learn'd,  indeed,  were  that  astronomer, 
That  knew  the  stars,  as  I  his  characters ; 
He'd  lay  the  future  open."  —  Cym.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

But  over  and  above  and  beyond  these  eternal  facts  and 
necessary  laws,  the  particular  changes  that  may  take  place 
in  the  existent  creation,  or  the  particular  details  that  may 
be  given  in  any  new  creation  in  future  time  and  space,  can 
only  be  matter  of  probability  and  conjecture  to  man, 
grounded  on  his  knowledge  of  God,  and  on  what  he  may 
come  to  know  of  the  past  and  present  providential  order, 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.         529 

plan,  and  purpose  as  disclosed  in  a  scientific  history  and 
true  knowledge  of  the  universe  so  far ;  for  all  this  must 
depend  upon  his  free  will,  which  must  remain  forever  free. 
Absolute  foreknowledge  in  this  would  reduce  God  and  his 
universe  to  mere  necessity,  fixed  fate,  and  foreordination 
absolute,  and  the  order  of  his  providence  to  a  blind,  im- 
movable, inevitable  fatality,  and  world-machine.  There  is 
no  conceivable  possibility  of  such  foreknowledge,  and  any 
attempt  to  conceive  it,  or  state  it,  must  always  end  in  con- 
tradiction and  absurdity :  therefore  no  revelation  out  of  any 
such  foreknowledge  can  possibly  be  made  to  man  in  any 
way,  and  none  such  ever  was  made. 

We  should  not  attempt  to  conceive  of  God  as  a  being 
outside  the  universe  itself,  and  simply  operating  upon  a 
self-subsistent  dead  matter  as  a  something  coeternal  with 
him  and  distinct  from  his  own  thinking  essence,  substance, 
or  power,  but  rather  as  the  Master  Architect,  who  works 
with  his  own  materials,  indeed,  in  the  structure-building 
process  of  construction  of  a  universe,  but  who  is,  at  the 
same  time,  that  absolute  and  sovereign  architect,  who  first 
forms  his  own  materials  in  whatever  infinitesimal  atoms,  or 
thinnest  imponderable  ethers,  and,  as  it  were,  Arachne- 
like,  spins  his  material  out  of  the  one  substance  of  all  sub- 
stances, himself,  and  builds  ether  upon  ether,  atom  upon 
atom,  crystal  upon  crystal,  cell  upon  cell,  and  structure  upon 
structure,  throughout  the  fabric  of  nature,  beginning  the 
work  at  the  point  of  beginning  of  all  creation,  where  infin- 
ite passes  into  finite,  and  is  bounded  out  of  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  a  thinking  power ;  as  when  the  sixty-two  simple 
substances  (more  or  less)  were  created;  or  as  when  this 
evolving  and  constructing  power,  starting  at  the  germinal 
dot,  or  innermost  centre  of  the  innermost  vesicle  of  the 
seed,  or  the  egg,  spins  the  thread  and  weaves  the  tissue  out 
of  existing  materials,  and  builds  up  a  shoot,  or  an  embryo, 
breathing  into  it,  or  exhibiting  within  it,  at  the  same  time, 
as  much  life,  or  as  much  soul,  as  it  needs,  or  can  have. 
34 


530  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

And  it  is  precisely  at  such  point,  always,  that  a  mathemati- 
cal science  of  force,  motion,  revolution,  number,  magnitude* 
quantity,  proportion,  and  instrumentation,  begins  to  be 
possible  ;  for  mathematics  is  the  science  of  the  laws  of 
thought,  creative  or  destructive,  under  which  the  actual 
given  creation  comes  forth  into  existence,  and  alone  can 
come :  of  which  science  of  laws,  again,  knowledge  is  fore- 
knowledge always,  just  so  far.  But  for  the  rest,  it  must  be 
left  to  the  fabled  three,  Clotho,  the  spinner,  Nemesis,  the 
fate  which  is  judicial  providence,  and  Atropos,  whose  tear- 
less shears  are  necessity  and  death. 

What  is  given  in  the  origin  of  the  finite  soul,  is  the  special 
thinking  power.  That  power  is  simply  a  specialization  of 
the  total  divine  power  of  thought ;  and  it  is  of  the  very 
essence  and  nature  of  that  power  to  be  self-acting  and 
self-directing  cause,  and  self-moving  soul ;  or  nearly  what 
Bacon  calls  "  the  highest  generality  of  motion  or  summary 
law  of  nature,"  which  God  would  "  still  reserve  within  his 
own  curtain." ]  There  is  a  difference  between  power  and 
will,  and  between  will  and  free-will.  Will  is  that  which 
measures  the  given  amount  of  power,  and  the  totality  of  all 
power  ;  and  it  is  not  free.  It  is  a  necessary  fact :  it  merely 
expresses  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  power  in  its  act- 
ual totality.  The  power  as  such  totality  is  by  its  own 
nature  necessarily  in  activity  as  self-acting  and  self-direct- 
ing cause :  this  is  a  part  of  the  fundamental  fact  of  its 
existence.  Free-will,  again,  is  not  the  active,  choosing, 
and  directing  cause,  or  power  itself,  but  only  the  freedom 
of  the  power  as  choosing  cause,  and  that  which  admits  of 
difference  of  direction  of  the  power  which  exists  already  as 
self-acting  and  self-directing  cause.  Free-will  expresses 
only  that  necessary  law  and  condition  of  all  thinking, 
wherein  is  the  possibility  of  duality,  plurality,  difference, 
variety,  coordination,  opposition,  and  involution  of  particu- 
lars, in  the  creation  of  conceptions :  it  is  merely  freedom 
as  one  of  the  possibilities  of  a  thinking  existence. 
1  Valerius  Terminus. 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.  531 

But  besides  the  freedom  which  exists  under  this  inner 
law  of  thought,  there  is  another  kind  of  freedom  for  a  finite 
soul ;  and  that  is  freedom  of  practical  action  and  effect, 
or  operation,  upon  the  body  and  the  rest  of  the  external 
world ;  for  which  the  limitations  are  the  order  of  divine 
providence  in  the  rest  of  the  universe  external  to  the  soul, 
and  which,  beyond  the  extent  to  which  it  may  be  modified 
or  changed,  by  the  action  of  the  soul  upon  it  as  causative 
power,  must  exist  as  absolute  fate  for  the  soul.  In  that 
change,  there  is  necessarily  a  certain  concurrence  in  the 
mind  of  the  Creator,  ending  in  an  equilibrium  of  stationary 
balance,  depending  on  the  necessary  general  stability  of  the 
whole  and  the  essential  natures  of  particular  things,  the 
providential  plan  in  the  distribution  of  particulars  in  the 
universal  variety,  the  amount  of  power  given  and  exerted 
in  the  twofold  direction,  and  the  extent  and  scope  of  lib- 
erty allowed  to  the  finite  soul  as  a  practical  free  agent. 

The  direction  cannot  precede  the  power.  Some  direc- 
tion must  follow,  of  necessity,  the  activity  of  the  power.  A 
point  cannot  move  without  creating  a  line,  straight,  or 
curved,  nor  create  a  line  without  moving ;  nor  move  with- 
out causative  power.  Movement,  that  is,  creation,  begins 
at  a  mathematical  point;  and  on  this  fundamental  truth 
Newton  based  the  Calculus."  1  The  direction  must  begin  at 
exactly  the  same  point  in  time  and  space  as  the  activity  of 
the  power.  Free-will  is  that  freedom  or  liberty  on  all 
sides,  in  which  is  determined  the  direction  of  the  power  in 
action  as  self-directing  cause,  within  the  given  range  of 
liberty,  one  way  rather  than  another,  giving  the  straight 
line,  or  the  curve,  and  what  line,  and  what  curve.  "Will  is 
that  which  necessitates  some  direction,  and  some  line,  or 
some  curve,  the  power  being  in  activity  as  an  ultimate  fact 
The  range  of  free-will  for  the  finite  soul  is  circumscribed 
by  the  limitations  of  its  own  specially  constituted  sphere  of 
activity,  consisting  of  the  given  limited  amount  of  power 
i  Princijiia,  Bk.  I.,  §  1,  Lemma  II. 


532  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

and  the  inner  laws  of  power  as  thought,  on  the  one  side, 
and  of  the  outer  world,  the  external  order  of  providence, 
or  fate,  on  the  other  side  ;  within  which  arise  and  exist  all 
the  external  and  foreign  limiting  determinators  of  the  self- 
directing  power,  the  inner  metaphysical  and  necessary,  the 
external  physical,  whether  fixed,  or  variable,  the  judicial, 
the  moral,  the  aesthetical,  and  the  religious ;  and  the  range 
of  liberty  is  given  in  the  whole  sphere  thus  constituted. 
Will,  measuring  the  total  amount  of  power,  the  inner  limit 
of  freedom  on  that  side,  expresses  the  fact  of  its  existence 
and  the  necessity  of  some  action  and  some  direction,  if 
there  be  a  living  soul ;  even  though  it  should  be  no  more 
than  is  necessary  in  order  to  maintain  a  stationary  equili- 
brium of  bare  existence  as  an  active  power.  This  neces- 
sary some  direction  is  given  with  the  power  itself,  at  the 
same  time  and  from  the  same  source  :  it  is  a  part  of  the 
ultimate  fact  of  existence.  As  self-directing  cause,  this 
soul  may  give  direction,  that  is,  choose,  within  the  given 
range  of  liberty,  or  it  may  not:  if  it  do  not  so  act  and 
choose,  then  the  direction  of  the  power  must  be  deter- 
mined by  necessity ;  and  the  soul  will  act  in  the  direction 
taken  by  the  choice,  if  any  be  so  taken,  or  if  not,  then  by 
mere  necessity  and  blind  chance  ;  or  it  will  move  by  virtue 
of  that  more  inward  and  original  direction,  which  it  has 
received  and  possesses  with  its  primal  existence :  wherein 
may  consist  that  guiding  and  controlling  guardianship,  or 
"  secret  will  and  grace  "  of  the  Greater  Providence,  which 
may  sometimes  determine  the  direction  and  the  choice, 
when  the  self-directing  specialty,  as  such,  is  unable  to  de- 
cide and  determine  for  itself,  being  for  the  time  in  a  cer- 
tain unresolvable  quandary ;  which  guardianship,  again, 
may  be  that  which  is  sometimes  called  Luck,  and  some- 
times Destiny,  being  that  same 

"  destiny 
(That  hath  to  instrument  this  lower  world, 
And  what  is  in  't "  ) :  —  Temp.,  Act  III.  tSc.  3. 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.         533 

or,  as  Holinshed  wrote,  "  the  divine  providence  and  appoint- 
ment of  God,  as  St.  Augustine  saith  ;  for  of  other  destiny,  it 
is  impossible  to  dream."  *  In  like  manner  writes  Hooker, 
about  1594,  in  the  "Ecclesiastical  Polity"'  (which  this 
author  may  have  read),  "  that  the  natural  generation  and 
process  of  all  things  receiveth  order  of  proceeding  from  the 
settled  stability  of  the  divine  understanding.  This  ap- 
pointeth  unto  them  their  kinds  of  working ;  the  disposition 
whereof  in  the  purity  of  God's  own  knowledge  and  will  is 
rightly  termed  by  the  name  of  Providence.  The  same 
being  referred  unto  the  things  themselves  here  disposed  by 

it,  was  wont  by  the  ancient  to  be  called  natural  Destiny 

Nature  therefore  is  nothing  else  but  God's  instrument"  2 
And  Hamlet  was  not  far  from  this  same  doctrine,  when  he 
said :  — 

"Ham.    Sir,  in  my  heart  there  was  a  kind  of  fighting, 
That  would  not  let  me  sleep :  methought,  I  lay 
Worse  than  the  mutines  in  the  bilboes.     Rashly,  — 
And  prais'd  be  rashness  for  it,  —  let  us  know, 
Our  indiscretion  sometimes  serves  us  well 
When  our  deep  plots  do  pall;  and  that  should  teach  us 
There  's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  how  we  will. 

Hot.  That  is  most  certain." 

Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

And  so,  this  soul  must  act  upon  something  out  of  the 
whole  range  and  field  of  view,  and  either  remain  fixed  in 
stupid  equilibrium  in  one  direction  and  upon  the  same 
thine,  or  it  must  shift  upon  the  chosen  things,  or  upon  the 
destined  things ;  as  when  a  child  first  opens  its  eyes  to  the 
light,  then  needing  much  guidance  and  guardianship  ;  and 
it  will  perceive,  conceive,  or  act  and  do,  something,  or 
remain  in  stationary  equilibrium  ;  and  that,  too,  by  the 
determination  of  voluntary  choice,  sheer  necessity,  blind 
chance,  or  the  all-seeing  Destiny,  out  of  the  whole  possi- 

1  Chron.  of  Eng.,\.  40. 

2  Hooker' s  Works  (Oxford,  1850,)  1. 158. 


53-i  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

bility  of  thinking  and  doing,  even  downward  in  the  scale 
to  the  low  grade  of  a  mere  instinctive  consciousness  of  bare 
existence,  and  down  to  that  narrow  sphere  of  liberty,  which 
is  given,  say,  to  the  crinoid  star-fish,  fixed  by  his  stem  to 
the  bottom  of  the  ocean.  Growth  and  development  of 
body  and  increase  of  the  power  of  the  soul  in  the  ascend- 
ing scale  of  types  of  organization,  experience,  discipline, 
practical  skill,  knowledge,  wisdom,  culture,  insight,  may 
follow,  in  their  degrees,  even  up  to  the  highest  human 
wisdom  and  intelligence,  wherein  is  the  divine  light  of  the 
soul.  But  the  thought,  which  this  special  soul  will  have, 
must  depend  upon  what  it  acts  against  and  perceives,  or 
what  it  acts  upon  and  creates  within  itself  as  conceptions 
of  its  own  ;  and  its  acts  and  doings  will  depend  upon  the 
thought  and  the  direction  taken  by  the  power  of  the  soul ; 
and  all  its  knowledge,  wisdom,  and  culture  must  be  acquired. 
But  the  fundamental  power  to  perceive,  conceive,  think, 
understand,  judge,  and  know,  and  do,  is  given,  in  whatever 
swelling  measure,  and  is  not  acquired ;  though  acquired 
skill,  in  many  things,  may  be  equivalent  in  practical  effect 
to  an  increase  of  power.  We  have,  in  the  "  Cymbeline," 
some  illustration  of  this  kind  of  power  and  the  degree  of 
faculty  and  difference  of  quality,  which  Nature  may  give, 
with  the  birth  of  the  individual.  The  two  sons  of  the  king 
are  stolen  from  their  cradle  by  Belarius,  and  brought  up  in 
a  forest  cave  that  was  "  a  cell  of  ignorance  "  as  hunters, 
knowing  nothing  of  their  origin.  And  when  Imogen  ap- 
pears at  the  cave  in  the  disguise  of  an  unknown  boy,  the 
brothers  conceive  a  greater  liking  for  him  than  they  have 
for  their  supposed  father,  Belarius  :  — 

"Bel.     [Aside.]  0  noble  strain ! 

0  worthiness  of  nature !  breed  of  greatness ! 
Cowards  father  cowards,  and  base  things  sire  base : 
Nature  hath  meal  and  bran ;  contempt  and  grace. 

1  am  not  their  father;  yet  who  this  should  be, 
Doth  miracle  itself,  lov'd  before  me. 

0  thou  goddess, 


THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE.  535 

Thou  divine  Nature,  how  thyself  thou  blazon'st 
In  these  two  princely  boys !     They  are  as  gentle 
As  zephyrs,  blowing  below  the  violet, 
Not  wagging  his  sweet  head ;  and  yet  as  rough, 
Their  royal  blood  enchafd,  as  the  rud'st  wind, 
That  by  the  top  doth  take  the  mountain  pine, 
And  make  him  stoop  to  th'  vale.    'T  is  wonder 
That  an  invisible  instinct  should  frame  them 
To  royalty  unlearn'd,  honor  untaught, 
Civility  not  seen  from  other,  valour 
That  wildly  grows  in  them,  but  yields  a  crop 
As  if  it  had  been  sow'd !  "  —  Act  J  V.  Be.  2. 

Thus  is  the  soul  constituted  a  special  thinker  and  cre- 
ator by  itself,  under  a  special  consciousness  of  its  own  ;  and 
all  its  perceptions,  conceptions,  thought,  ideas,  knowledge, 
wisdom,  culture,  and  insight,  even  to  a  knowledge  of  God 
and  the  universe  and  the  order  of  his  providence  in  it,  must 
be  exclusively  its  own,  and  arise  out  of  its  own  special 
activity  as  such  given  power  of  thought,  with  whatever  helps 
it  may  have.  All  the  while,  man  must  remember,  that  he 
lives  in  a  world-prison  as  close  as  that  in  which  the  fallen 
King  Richard  meditated  :  — 

"K.  Rich.    I  have  been  studying  how  I  may  compare 
This  prison,  where  I  live,  unto  the  world: 
And,  for  because  the  world  is  populous, 
And  here  is  not  a  creature  but  myself, 
I  cannot  do  it;  yet  still  I  '11  hammer 't  out 
My  brain  I  '11  prove  the  female  to  my  soul ; 
My  soul,  the  father;  and  these  two  beget 
A  generation  of  still  breeding  thoughts, 
And  these  same  thoughts  people  this  little  world; 
In  humours  like  the  people  of  this  world, 
For  no  thought  is  contented.    The  better  sort, 
As  thoughts  of  things  divine,  are  intermix'd 
With  scruples,  and  do  set  the  Word  itself 
Against  the  Word: 

As  thus,  — '  Come  little  ones ' ;  and  then  again,  — 
'  It  is  as  hard  to  come,  as  for  a  camel 
To  thread  the  postern  of  a  needle's  eye.' 
Thoughts  tending  to  ambition,  they  do  plot 
Unlikely  wonders :  how  these  vain  weak  nails 
May  tear  a  passage  through  the  flinty  ribs 


536  THE  GREATER  PROVIDENCE. 

Of  this  hard  world,  my  ragged  prison  walls ; 
And,  for  they  cannot,  die  in  their  own  pride ! 
Thoughts  tending  to  content  flatter  themselves 
That  they  are  not  the  first  of  fortune's  slaves, 
Nor  shall  not  be  the  last;  like  silly  beggars, 
Who,  sitting  in  the  stocks,  refuge  their  shame 
That  many  have,  and  others  must  sit  there : 
And  in  this  thought  they  find  a  kind  of  ease, 
Bearing  their  own  misfortune  on  the  back 
Of  such  as  have  before  endur'd  the  like. 

But  whate'er  I  am, 

Nor  I,  nor  any  man,  that  but  man  is, 

With  nothing  shall  be  pleas'd  till  he  be  eas'd 

With  being  nothing."  — Rich.  II.,  Act  V.  Sc.  5. 

What  is  given,  here,  from  the  original  fountain  of  all 
existence  being  a  thinking  power,  all  its  thinking,  its  special 
consciousness,  its  identity  and  personality,  its  ideas,  thoughts, 
knowledge,  wisdom,  and  culture,  and  all  its  acts  and  doings, 
must  necessarily  be  the  effect,  work,  and  result  of  the  activ- 
ity of  the  power  as  original  cause,  under  the  whole  special 
constitution  of  the  soul  as  such.  In  like  manner,  the 
thought  of  God  must  be  the  work  and  effect  of  the  activity 
of  the  divine  power  of  thought  in  its  whole  unity  and  total- 
ity ;  and  his  thought,  knowledge,  and  purposes  must  exist 
under  the  divine  consciousness  alone,  being  as  boundless  as 
the  universe  and  himself.  His  thought  and  action,  being 
the  actual  universe,  is  presented  as  such  effect  and  as  re- 
ality directly  to  the  fore-front  view  of  this  special  thinker, 
seer,  knower,  and  doer,  whether  he  shall  see  much  or  little 
of  it,  whether  he  shall  heed,  or  not,  its  laws,  facts,  and  les- 
sons. But,  to  suppose  the  thought,  ideas,  knowledge,  or 
purposes  of  the  divine  mind,  could  be  directly  made  known, 
immediately  imparted,  to  this  special  thinker  from  behind, 
underneath,  and  beyond  the  origin  and  source  of  the  soul 
itself,  as  so  constituted,  by  any  conceivable  sort  of  direct 
illumination,  inspiration,  or  other  kind  of  spiritual  commu- 
nication, angelic,  daemoniac,  or  super-telegraphic,  would  be 
in  effect,  either  to  imagine  an  inconceivable  and  absurd 
impossibility,  or  to  suppose  the  soul  to  lose  its  specializa- 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  537 

tion  and  to  fall  back  (as  a  wave  falls  to  the  level  of  the  sea) 
into  total  identity  with  the  "  oversoul,"  the  Greater  Provi- 
dence itself;  a  supposition,  which  would  necessarily  involve 
the  logical  and  inevitable  destruction  and  utter  extinction 
of  the  special  soul,  as  such  ;  and  it  would  vanish  into  silence 
and  oblivion.  True,  this  might  happen,  or  it  might  not,  at 
the  will  of  the  Creator :  if  the  ocean  covered  the  globe,  a 
wave  might  roll  eternally  on  a  given  circle.  Says  Jean  Paul 
Richter,  "  I  believe  in  a  harmonious,  an  eternal  ascent,  but 
in  no  created  culmination."  * 

§    4.    THE    LESSER   PROVIDENCE. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  the 
Lesser  Providence,  it  is  to  be  considered  that  the  soul,  so 
constituted,  must  exist  as  an  object  and  a  fact  of  the  divine 
consciousness,  in  like  manner  as  the  body.  The  power 
given  and  specialized  in  that  particular  way  in  the  creation 
of  the  soul  in  the  universal  distribution  of  variety  in  the 
totality  of  the  universe,  under  that  consciousness,  must 
depend,  always,  for  the  amount  of  power,  on  the  divine 
power  in  its  freedom  as  self-acting  and  self-directing  cause 
in  the  whole  providential  order  and  plan  of  the  divine 
thought;  and  so,  the  capability  of  any  soul  to  think  —  to 
perceive,  conceive,  see,  understand,  judge,  know,  and  do, 
must  depend  at  bottom  upon  the  amount  of  power  so  given  ; 
and  just  so,  from  the  lowest  self-conscious  animal  up  to  the 
highest  human  intelligence.  But  nothing  but  the  power 
and  the  specialization  of  it  are  given  from  that  direction 
and  on  that  side.  Identity  with  the  divine  Existence  ex- 
tends no  further  than  to  this  fundamental  essence  of  the 
soul  as  a  finite  power  of  thought.  By  virtue  of  that  identity 
it  is  power  in  fact  of  the  nature  of  the  power  of  thought,  in 
a  state  of  activity,  and  that  "  sparkle  of  our  creation  light 
whereby  men  acknowledge  a  Deity  burnetii  still  within," 
and,  as  such,  self-acting,  self-directing  cause  so  far.  Dif- 
i  Kampaner  Thai,  Werke,  XIII.  44. 


538  THE  LESSER   PROVIDENCE. 

ference  from  the  universal  soul  consists  in  the  special  con- 
stitution of  the  finite  thinking  sphere,  so  far  as  the  special- 
ization goes  ;  and  it  embraces  the  whole  specialization  and 
no  more,  the  limitations  being,  on  one  side,  the  physical 
organization  and  the  outward  world,  and  on  the  other,  the 
given  amount  of  power  and  the  necessary  laws  of  thought ; 
and  between  the  two  sides  or  halves  of  the  sphere  (as  it 
were)  is,  in  fact,  not  a  hollow  sphere,  nor  a  blank-sheet 
sensorium,  but  only  that  invisible  sheet-plane  which  is  yet 
neither  a  substance,  nor  a  space,  but  a  mere  region  of  pos- 
sibility of  thinking,  action,  and  sense-perception,  and  that 
same  All  Possibility  in  which  God  himself  exists  and  creates 
the  universe  as  His  thought.  In  this  unbounded  possibility, 
in  which  lies  the  whole  outer  world  and  field  of  sensible 
experience,  however  undiscoverable  its  limits  to  us,  as  well 
as  our  own  inner  world  of  intellectual  conception,  there  is 
no  end  to  the  creations  of  God  and  man  :  art  and  science 
have  no  bounds  in  this  direction,  being  limited,  in  this 
respect,  in  man,  or  animal,  only  in  the  exhaustion  of  his 
power  to  act,  to  discover,  and  to  create,  but  being,  in  God, 
as  boundless  as  all  the  worlds  of  his  creation,  that  are,  or 
have  been,  and  as  inexhaustible  as  the  eternal  continuity 
of  his  existence  and  power  to  think  and  create. 

But  it  is  in  the  special  constitution  and  by  virtue  of  the 
specialization,  only,  that  special  thinking  and  a  particular 
consciousness  arise.  The  whole  individual  identity  of  the 
soul  as  a  thinking  personality  depends  upon  the  specialties, 
and  it  must  cease  if  and  when  they  cease.  The  soul  so 
specialized,  and  bounded  like  a  wave  out  of  the  whole  ocean 
of  soul,  stands  as  a  created  object  and  a  thought  in  the 
divine  consciousness,  in  the  same  manner  as  a  tree,  or  a 
microscopic  cell  of  a  tree  ;  but  while  it  is  such  object  in  the 
divine  mind,  it  is  also  a  special  subject  for  itself.  But  a 
tree,  or  a  cell,  is  not,  any  more  than  is  a  body  without  a 
soul.  The  inner  powers  active  in  a  cell  are  in  motion  under 
the  divine  consciousness  alone,  like  all  the  powers  of  phys- 


THE  LESSER   PROVIDENCE.  539 

ical  nature,  to  which  we  give  no  higher  name  than  mechan- 
ical, chemical,  electrical,  or,  in  general,  physical  forces.  But 
when  we  come  to  a  self-acting,  self-directing,  self-conscious 
power,  a  new  name  is  necessary  in  all  science  and  in  all 
languages  to  designate  this  new  fact  and  peculiar  phe- 
nomenon ;  and  it  is  called  a  mind  or  a  soul.  As  Plato  says, 
and  it  cannot  well  be  better  said,  "  the  beginning  of  motion 
is  that  which  moves  itself;  and  this  can  neither  perish,  nor 
be  created,  or  all  heaven  and  all  creation  must  collapse 
and  come  to  a  standstill,  and  never  again  have  any  means 
whereby  it  might  be  moved  and  created " ;  and  again,  he 
says,  "  every  body  which  is  moved  from  without  is  soulless, 
but  that  which  is  moved  from  within,  of  itself,  possesses  a 
soul,  since  this  is  the  very  nature  of  soul."  *  And  so,  says 
Bacon,  "  all  spirits  and  souls  of  men  came  forth  out  of  one 
divine  limbus  " :  — 

"  Porter.    I  have  some  of  'em  in  Limbo  Pairum,  and  there  they  are  like 
to  dance  these  three  days."  —  Hen.  VIII.,  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

It  has  become  as  difficult  in  science  to  draw  the  dividing 
line  between  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms  in  respect 
of  organization  as  it  has  been,  in  metaphysics,  to  mark  the 
line  of  division  between  instinct  and  intelligence.  There 
is  a  large  class  of  animalcular  cell-like  bodies,  with  refer- 
ence to  which  naturalists  of  the  highest  distinction  differ  in 
opinion  as  to  whether  they  belong  to  the  animal  or  to  the 
vegetable  kingdom  ;  and  of  many  species,  even  an  Ehren- 
berg  cannot  determine  with  his  microscope  whether  they 
are  to  be  classed  with  animals,  or  with  plants.  Science  is 
every  day  shifting  some  species  from  the  one  kingdom  into 
the  other.  That  they  have  an  apparently  voluntary  motion, 
vibratory,  or  oscillatory,  or  revolving,  is  not  sufficient  to 
determine  the  question  ;  for  in  this  they  are  all  alike.  And 
Lankester  finally  resolves  the  essential  organic  difference 
between  the  two  kingdoms  into  a  difference  of  merely 
l  Phadrus,  Works  (Bohn),  I.  321. 


540  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

chemical  operations.  Nevertheless,  it  is  easy  to  distinguish 
a  mere  excito-motory  instinctive  motion,  whether  of  a  sensi- 
tive plant,  or  a  sensitive  animal,  which  is  a  mechanical  or  a 
physiological  result  of  organization  and  applied  forces,  from 
an  independent  self-moving,  self-directing  cause  and  a  self- 
conscious  power.  The  most  delicate  water-creeper,  the 
most  infinitesimal  rotifer,  starts  and  stops,  goes  and  comes, 
as  he  wills.  A  loom,  be  it  ever  so  ingeniously  constructed, 
presents  only  a  certain  mechanical  practicability  of  cloth 
being  woven :  it  has  not,  nor  can  it  have,  a  self-moving 
power  to  weave  cloth,  as  the  spider  has,  to  spin  and  weave 
his  web.  Applied  power,  as  of  water  or  steam,  may  put 
the  instrumental  machine  in  motion  ;  but  even  then,  it 
weaves  nothing,  and  only  runs  as  an  empty  mill.  The 
power  that  actually  weaves  cloth  is  only  in  the  soid  of  the 
weaver.  It  is  clear,  that  the  fly-catching  movement  of  the 
leaf  of  Dionaea,  or  the  vibrating  motion  of  the  leaflet  of 
Hydesarum,  or  the  life-like  motion  of  the  sensitive  Mimosa, 
is  a  mere  result  of  organization  and  of  the  action  of  external 
or  internal  physical  forces  or  both  together,  though  a 
Schleiden  cannot  discover  the  "  causes "  with  his  micro- 
scope.1    Indeed,  all  nature  is,  in  one  sense,  alive  :  — 

"  All  things  unto  our  flesh  are  kind 
In  their  descent  and  being;  to  our  mind, 
In  their  ascent  and  cause  " :  —  Herbert. 

or  as  another  poet  sings  :  — 

"  L'anima  di  ogni  bruto  e  delle  piante 
Di  complession  potenziata  tira 
Lo  raggio  e  il  moto  delle  luci  sante."  —  Dante,  Par.  c.  vii. 

The  eye  of  science  has  not  yet  discovered,  in  all  cases, 
the  exact  stage  in  the  scale  of  organized  being,  whether  in 
the  Kingdom,  or  in  the  Branch,  or  in  the  individual,  where 
this  kind  of  power  first  distinctly  appears  in  a  special  form  : 
the  exact  point  of  its  first  appearance  in  the  flow  of  the 
physical  stream  may  not  be  very  essential.     Nor  is  it  at  all 

1  Schleiden's  Prin.  of  Botany,  p.  554  (London,  1849). 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  641 

necessary  that  this  fact  should  be  taken  as  a  criterion  of 
distinction  between  an  animal  and  a  plant,  or  between  one 
Branch,  or  Class,  of  the  animal  kingdom  and  another,  but 
only,  for  that  matter,  between  an  excito-motory,  or  merely 
instinctive  function  and  a  self-conscious  power  or  will,  be- 
tween an  animal  that  has,  and  one  that  has  not,  a  self- 
moving  soul,  though  it  be  so  limited  and  diminutive  in 
amount  of  power  of  thought  and  action  in  the  particular 
instance  as  to  be  sometimes  rather  called  an  instinct  than 
a  soul.  But  it  is  necessary  critically  to  distinguish  between 
a  true  soul  and  that  structural,  physiological,  excito-motory 
function  of  motion  and  even  apparent  self-activity  which  is 
properly  called  an  instinct ;  that  is,  between  a  movement 
which  is  due  to  the  Greater  Providence  and  one  that  is  the 
work  of  the  lesser  providence  as  such. 

It  was  an  opinion  of  Bacon,  that  even  insects  had  some 
small  amount  of  mind.  "  The  insecta,"  he  writes,  "  have 
voluntary  motion,  and  therefore  imagination  ;  and  whereas 
some  of  the  ancients  have  said  that  their  motion  is  inde- 
terminate and  their  imagination  indefinite,  it  is  negligently 
observed ;  for  ants  go  right  forward  to  their  hills ;  and 
bees  do  (admirably)  know  the  way  from  a  flowery  heath 
two  or  three  miles  off  to  their  hives.  It  may  be,  gnats  and 
flies  have  their  imagination  more  mutable  and  giddy,  as 

small  birds  likewise  have And  though  their  spirit 

[soul]  be  diffused,  yet  there  is  a  seat  of  their  senses  in  the 
head." x 

It  is  evident  that  all  mental  manifestation  or  exhibition 
of  psychical  power  in  man  or  animals  is  immediately  con- 
nected with,  and  somehow  dependent  upon,  the  brain  and 
nervous  structures.  At  the  base  of  the  kingdom,  Owen  finds 
the  Protozoic  Acrita  without  a  nervous  system.  With  the 
Nematoneura,  a  mere  thread-nerve  appears.  The  next 
ascending  type  (Radiata)  is  characterized  by  an  oesophageal 
nervous  ring;  the  next  (Articulata)  has  two  ganglia  in 
i  Nat.  Bist.,  §  698. 


542  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

this  ring,  one  above  and  one  below  the  oesophagus  ;  and  as 
we  ascend  in  the  scale,  this  upper  ganglion  becomes  a  true 
cerebrum,  and  the  lower,  a  cerebellum  ;  that  is,  they  will 
be  found  to  correspond  in  ganglionic  function.  In  the  next 
type  (Mollusca),  we  have  three  ganglia  in  the  oesophageal 
ring,  the  third  and  additional  one  corresponding  in  nervous 
function  with  the  medulla  oblongata  of  the  higher  Branch 
(  Vertebrata.)  In  the  cuttle-fish  (Sepia),  the  highest  type 
of  mollusc,  these  three  ganglia  are  already  well  concen- 
trated into  the  head,  and  the  cerebral  ganglion  has  now 
become  a  well-defined  cerebrum,  and  begins  to  be  enclosed 
in  a  cartilaginous  brain-case.  In  the  first  class  of  Verte- 
brates (Fishes),  the  second  ganglion,  too,  has  become  a 
distinctly  rounded  nodule  and  a  well  marked  cerebellum  ; 
and  the  whole  brain  begins  to  be  enclosed  in  a  brain-case, 
cartilaginous,  at  first,  and  afterwards  and  higher  in  the 
scale,  in  a  bony  cranium.  In  these  Fishes,  the  three  ganglia, 
now  become  a  distinct  triplex  brain,  lie  extended  on  a 
horizontal  line,  with  the  cerebrum  in  front,  then  the  cere- 
bellum, and  last,  the  medulla  oblongata  ;  and  the  cerebellum 
is  smallest  in  comparative  size,  the  cerebrum  larger,  and 
the  medulla  oblongata,  largest.  In  the  Amphibia,  the  next 
higher  type,  the  cerebellum  has  become  larger  than  the 
cerebrum,  the  medulla  oblongata  being  still  the  largest.  In 
the  next  higher,  the  Reptiles,  the  cerebrum  is  still  smallest, 
and  the  other  two  have  become  nearly  equal  in  size.  In 
the  Birds,  the  next  higher  still,  the  cerebrum  is  largest,  the 
other  two  remaining  nearly  equal  in  size.  And  in  the 
Mammals,  the  cerebrum  has  become  still  larger  in  com- 
parison, and  the  cerebellum  larger  than  the  other.  And 
with  the  relative  and  comparative  size  goes,  in  general,  the 
increase  in  development  and  complication  of  the  brain 
structure.  And  still  further,  with  the  Birds  the  cerebrum, 
moving  backward  in  position,  already  begins  to  be  placed 
partly  above  the  other  parts  of  the  brain  ;  in  the  Mammals, 
it  covers  them  still  more ;  in  the  Lemurs,  the  first  family 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  543 

of  the  Ape  tribe,  it  is  placed  nearly  on  top  of  the  other 
parts,  not  yet  quite  covering  them  :  in  the  higher  Apes,  it 
fully  covers  them,  and  in  Man,  still  more  completely ;  and 
this  progress,  on  the  whole,  appears  to  exhibit  an  ever 
increasing  development  and  perfection  in  respect  of  the 
extent,  depth,  complication,  and  distinctive  prominence  of 
the  convolutions  of  the  brain,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  with  a 
corresponding  degree  of  fineness  and  delicacy  in  the  most 
•  intimate  and  inward  organization  and  structure  of  the 
microscopic  cell-tissues  ;  and  the  whole  ascending  order  of 
development,  arrangement,  evolution,  and  new  creation 
of  artistic  form,  is  thus  completed  in  the  erect  stature  and 
commanding  presence  of  the  lord  of  creation.  Not  that 
this  progress  consists  in  any  mere  development  along  one 
continuous  line  of  linear  descent ;  for  such  is  not  wholly 
the  fact ;  but  it  takes  place  along  several  divergent  and 
consecutively  branching  lines  of  linear  descent,  travelling 
over  different  surfaces  in  space  in  concurrent  times,  the 
concurrent  spaces  and  times  giving  the  distribution  in  time 
and  space,  and  the  true  ascent  is  in  respect  of  the  ideal 
type  alone,  executed  in  material  form  in  the  individual, 
wherein  it  is  seen  how  the  whole  is  an  ideal  and  real 
creation  in  time  and  space,  or  times  and  spaces,  and  a  work 
of  thought  only.  Herder,  as  well  as  Agassiz,  was  able  to 
see  this  gradual  approximation  to  the  erect  posture  and  the 
right  angle  of  highest  perfection  in  this  direction,  and  that 
all  further  ascent  must  needs  be  exclusively  in  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  order,  in  power  of  soul,  knowledge,  dis- 
cipline, and  culture. 

Throughout  the  scale,  taking  the  nervous  system  and  the 
brain  in  particular  as  basis  of  the  comparison  (with  Owen), 
as  is  just,  mind  and  the  order  of  exhibition  of  psychical 
power  being  the  most  fundamental  and  important  thing  of 
all,  the  correspondence  of  the  psychical  powers  and  faculties 
with  the  organic  structures,  from  the  thread-nerve  to  the 
full  human  brain,  is  clearly  manifest     In  the  thread-nerve, 


544  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

it  is  scarcely  more  than  a  physiological  function  ;  in  the 
nerve-ring,  it  is  no  more  than  a  mere  excito-motory  instinc- 
tive function  ;  in  the  homogangliate  duplex  brain  of  the 
Articulates,  a  self-conscious,  self-directing  psychical  power 
becomes  more  decidedly  evident,  with  an  increased  amount 
and  variety  of  sensational  phenomena  ;  the  heterogangliate 
triplex  brain,  in  the  molluscous  cuttle-fish,  reaches  a  still 
higher  degree  of  mental  manifestation  and  power ;  and  in 
the  Vertebrate  Branch,  with  still  greater  concentration  into 
the  head  and  a  more  rapidly  increasing  development  and 
evolution  and  new  creation  of  brain  structure,  in  compara- 
tive relation  to  the  whole  body  and  to  the  Class,  or  Branch, 
the  whole  psychical  and  sensational  endowment  advances 
by  ascending  steps  and  degrees,  as  the  animal  procession, 
in  the  order  of  creative  divine  providence,  advances  in 
geological  time  from  out  of  the  sea  into  the  air,  from  sea 
and  air  to  shore  and  land,  to  island,  to  continent ;  and  it 
becomes  difficult  (though  it  may  yet  be  possible)  to  say, 
exactly  when  and  where  finite  mind,  or  soul,  first  began  ; 
for  as  we  trace  backward  the  order  of  the  ascent  in  past 
time,  just  as  when  we  attempt  to  trace  it  in  the  order  of 
ascent  in  the  scale  of  classification  in  present  space,  we  find 
it  dwindling  by  degrees  from  the  highest  intellectual  power 
in  man  down  to  a  mere  instinct,  to  a  simple  function  of 
motion,  or  even  to  merely  physiological,  mechanical,  and 
general  physical  powers  or  forces. 

A  fabulous  opinion  is  still  quite  prevalent,  that  man  only 
(and  gome  would  even  leave  out  the  lowest  races  of  men 
as  well  as  the  higher  apes)  has  a  soul.  It  is  based  upon 
certain  foggy,  mystical,  and  obscure  notions  of  the  Biblical 
revelation,  and  means  only  that  man  alone  has  such  a  soul 
as  can  be  saved  and  go  to  Heaven.  Dr.  Carpenter  thinks 
there  is  no  mind,  or  soul,  below  the  Vertebrates.  What 
his  idea  of  mind  or  soul  is,  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine 
or  define.  The  phrenologists  begin  by  assuming  at  once  a 
whole  psychology,  wherein  the  human  mind  appears  to  be 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  545 

an  agglomeration  of  some  forty  distinct  faculties  and  powers, 
which  they  as  readily  proceed  to  locate  within  the  skull 
from  the  outside.  Carpenter  works  from  the  inside,  but 
ends  in  finding  a  "  Sensorium "  in  the  Sensory  Ganglia 
{thalami  optici  and  corpora  striata),  wherein  he  seats  what 
he  calls  "  Sensation,"  "  Ideation,"  and  "  Consciousness  "  ; 
and  he  discovers  "  internal  senses "  in  the  commissural 
fibres,  and  locates  the  will  and  intelligence  in  the  cortical 
substance  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  This,  too,  is  psy- 
chology with  "  a  splitting  power." 

The  work  of  creation  of  an  individual  seems  to  proceed 
in  a  manner  closely  analogous  to  the  mode  of  procedure  in 
the  creation  of  an  animal  kingdom.  Descending  by  the 
light  of  science  and  the  help  of  the  microscope  into  the 
inner  laboratory  of  God  and  Nature,  wherein  the  work  of 
creation  never  ceases,  we  arrive  at  length  at  the  germinal 
vesicle  with  its  central  dot,  or  point  of  beginning  of  the 
creation  of  the  new  individual,  being  nearly  that  same 
mathematical  point  at  which  all  creation,  divine  or  human, 
always  and  everywhere  begins.  From  this  centre  proceeds 
the  formation  and  evolution  of  new  cells  as  materials  of 
construction.  All  sorts  of  powers  are  evidently  at  work 
here,  mechanical,  physiological,  chemical,  electrical,  or  other, 
and,  underneath  these,  the  creative  thinking  power  itself, 
wielding  all  these  other  and  secondary  forces  as  means  and 
instruments,  under  the  laws  and  conditions  thereof,  and 
using  the  existing  forms  of  substance  and  modes  of  force, 
solid,  liquid,  gaseous,  or  ethereal,  as  materials  and  instru- 
ments at  hand  ready  made  for  the  work  ;  and  the  artistic 
operation  begins.  —  How  do  you  know  this  ?  Know  it ! 
When  we  see  a  Homer's  Iliad,  do  we  not  know  it  came 
from  the  soul  of  a  Homer  ?  or  a  St.  Paul's,  a  St.  Peter's,  a 
watch,  or  a  world,  do  we  not  know  it  came  from  the  mind 
of  the  architect  and  artist  ?  for,  surely,  of  all  things  else  we 
know  anything  about  nothing  but  mind  works  and  creates 
in  that  way. 

35 


5±Q  THE  LESSER  PKOVIDENCE. 

But  this  work  does  not  proceed  beyond  a  certain  stage, 
it  seems,  according  to  the  nearest  scientific  exploration, 
until  the  male  seminal  cells  actually  reach  the  outside  of 
the  initiative  egg-cell,  containing  this  germinal  vesicle,  and 
there  deliquesce  in  contact  (and  M.  Tulasne  finds  it  to  be 
just  so,  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,)  the  fluid  contents  of 
these  cells  being  taken  into  actual  mixture  with  those  of  the 
egg-cell  by  imbibition  or  endosmose  through  the  cell-walls. 
So  much  science  has  settled  for  us  ;  and  this  is  called  im- 
pregnation. Reinforced  thus,  the  work  of  producing  new 
cell-material  starts  anew  and  proceeds  with  renewed  vigor. 
By  a  wonderful  process  of  segmentation,  it  seems,  a  single 
cell,  or  a  whole  mass  of  cells,  is  made  by  halving  to  chop 
itself  into  a  million  portions,  each  containing  a  part  of  the 
contents  of  the  parent  cell,  or  mass  of  cells,  and  a  share  of 
the  cell-producing  power,  which  appears,  in  some  measure, 
to  continue  throughout  the  life  of  the  new  animal,  living  in 
all  the  tissues,  and  not  exhausted  even  in  the  hardest  bone  ; 
and  so,  the  work  of  new  creation  continually  runs  along  the 
interior  basis  of  the  individual  structure,  in  like  manner  as 
it  runs  along  the  base  of  the  entire  animal  pyramid  and 
of  the  entire  vegetable  pyramid.  Materials  enough  being 
ready,  the  Architect  (so  be  the  work  be  not  detruded  by 
the  intractable  and  perverse  nature  of  matter,  and  by  fatal 
intervening  impediments,  and  thereby  deviated  from  the 
ordinary  course,)  distributes  them  into  layers ;  out  of  one 
he  fashions  an  alimentary  canal  system  and  reproductive 
organs,  and  this  we  may  call  the  first  story  of  the  building  ; 
out  of  a  second  layer,  he  unfolds  a  whole  vascular  system 
of  heart,  lungs,  arteries,  veins,  for  a  second  story  ;  and  for 
the  third,  out  of  the  other  layer,  (which  is  first  begun.)  he 
moulds  the  skeleton  (to  serve  as  basement)  and  the  muscles, 
tendons,  tissues,  nerves,  and  brain,  for  frame-work  and 
inside  finish  of  the  whole  fabric  ;  and  the  brain  is  pushed 
up,  as  it  were,  into  the  very  top  and  dome  of  the  living 
temple.     But,  by  the  time  this  embryonic  process  of  evolu- 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  547 

tion  and  construction  is  completed,  there  begins  to  be 
exhibited  from  within  the  cerebrum,  at  whatever  exact 
point  in  time  and  space,  the  psychological  phenomenon  of 
an  actual  thinking  soul  and  a  specialized  manifestation  of 
that  same  creative  thinking  power  that  built  the  embryo ; 
and  thus  a  veritable  incarnation  of  the  Word  is  accom- 
plished :  — 

"  E  tutti  li  altri  modi  erano  searsi 
Alia  giustizia,  se  il  figlio  di  dio 
Non  fosse  umiliato  ad  incarnarsi." 

Paradiso  di  Dante,  c  vii. 

[And  all  the  other  modes  were  insufficient 
For  justice,  if  the  son  of  God  did  not 
Humiliate  himself,  and  be  incarnate.] 

Nutrition  ascends  from  the  first  story  into  the  second, 
and  from  thence  into  the  third,  and  even  down  into  the 
basement,  and  upward  into  the  dome,  and  so  keeps  the 
animal  alive.  That  the  work  proceeds,  in  each  individual, 
through  nearly  all  the  ascending  steps  and  grades  of  cell- 
development  and  embryological  evolution  as  exhibited  in 
the  graduated  ascent  of  the  entire  animal  kingdom  as  a 
whole,  or  in  the  Vertebrate  Branch,  in  particular,  in  respect 
of  type,  passing  through  fish,  reptile,  bird,  mammal,  monkey, 
up  to  man ;  or,  that  the  construction  proceeds  by  stories, 
somewhat  as  in  the  entire  kingdom  of  organic  nature,  with 
mineral  structures  in  the  first  or  basement  story,  with 
reproductive  organs  only  in  the  second,  as  in  Protozoa,  with 
a  nutritive  system,  only,  in  the  third,  as  in  some  lower  orders 
of  animals  and  in  the  vegetable  kingdom  also,  and  then 
a  vascular  system  superadded  in  a  fourth  story,  and  a 
nervous  system  in  a  fifth  and  last,  with  an  internal  skeleton 
and  a  true  and  perfect  brain  in  the  uppermost  loft  of  all ;  — 
all  this  is  only  to  be  taken  as  another  evidence  that  the 
Divine  Architect  takes  his  own  simplest  and  perhaps  near- 
est way  in  all  his  works :  all  which  not  only  seems  to  be 
true,  according  to  exact  science,  but  agrees  remarkably  well 
with  that  divine  revelation,  which  the  shade  of  the  poet 


548  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

Statius  made  to  Dante,  when  under  the  guidance  of  the 
soul  of  Virgil,  he  had  reached  the  seventh  hill  in  Purgatory, 
concluding  in  these  words  :  — 

"  Ma  come  di  animal  divegna  fante, 

Non  vedi  tu  ancor :  questo  e  tal  punto, 

Che  pui  savio  di  te  gia  fece  errante, 
SI,  che  per  sua  dottrina  fe  disgiunto 

Dall'  anima  il  possibile  intelletto, 

Per  che  da  lui  non  vide  organo  assunto. 
Apri  alia  verita,  che  viene,  il  petto 

E  sappi  che,  si  tosto  come  al  feto 

Lo  articolar  del  cerebro  e  perfetto, 
Lo  motor  primo  a  lui  si  volge  lieto 

Sovra  tant'  arte  di  natura,  e  spira 

Spirito  novo  di  virtu  repleto, 
Che  cio,  che  trova  attivo  quivi,  tira 

In  sua  sustanza,  e  fassi  un'  alma  sola, 

Che  vive,  e  sente,  e  se  in  s6  rigira."  —  Purg.,  c.  xxv. 

[But  how  an  infant  of  the  animal 

Doth  come,  thou  see'st  not  yet:  this  is  such  point, 

That  -wiser  men  than  thou  have  err'd  therein,  — 

They,  who  by  their  own  doctrine  have  disjoin'd 

From  soul  the  possible  intelligence, 

Because  they  saw  no  organ  by 't  assum'd. 

Open  thy  heart  to  th'  very  truth  which  comes, 

And  know  thou,  that  as  soon  as  in  the  foetus 

Th'  articulated  brain  is  once  perfected, 

Himself  kindly  to  't  the  First  Mover  turns, 

On  so  much  art  of  Nature,  and  inspires 

A  new  spirit,  with  virtue  all  replete ; 

So  that  you  see,  what 's  found  there  active,  shoots 

His  essence  in,  and  makes  a  soul  distinct, 

Which  lives,  and  feels,  and  rules  itself  in  self.] 

The  ascent  from  the  bottom  of  the  animal  kingdom  up 
to  the  top,  as  from  the  vesicular  cell  up  to  the  full-grown 
man,  is  by  a  wide  scale  of  steps  and  degrees.  Until  a  nerve 
is  reached,  there  can  be  no  pretence  that  any  special  psy- 
chical power  exists  in  any  particular  structure.  In  certain 
microscopic  animalcules  in  which  fine  nervous  threads,  in- 
finitesimal ganglia,  and  some  appearance  of  senses,  seem  to 
be  discernible,  if  really  so,  as  also  in  the  Nematoneura  and 
the  Radiata,  there  is  little  or  no  ground  of  probability  that 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  549 

there  exists  anything  more  than  that  kind  of  physiological 
movement  and  excito-motory  and  reflex  nervous  action  in 
obedience  to  external,  or  internal,  sensational  impressions, 
which  may  properly  be  called  instinct,  and  in  which  there  is 
otherwise  no  distinct  self-moving,  self-conscious  power.  The 
ganglia  of  the  oesophageal  ring  in  Articulates  and  Molluscs, 
though  in  part  subservient  to  certain  senses  and  to  the 
functions  of  sensation  and  motion,  must  be,  for  the  most 
part,  (if  not  entirely),  like  the  other  ganglia  of  these  animals, 
confined  to  the  same  kind  of  excito-motory  and  reflex 
activity,  which  is  to  be  considered  as  purely  physiological  in 
its  nature,  with  the  addition,  perhaps,  in  the  upper  or  cere- 
bral ganglion,  of  that  very  small  degree  of  psychical  power, 
which  is  necessary  to  give  a  faculty  of  choice  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  muscular  movements  and  the  motions  of  the 
animal,  in  obedience  to  actually  present  sensations,  deter- 
mining the  animal  to  one  direction,  or  to  one  act,  rather 
than  another,  but  not  amounting  to  such  a  degree  of  this 
power  as  to  be  capable  of  conceiving  ideas,  ideal  images, 
conceptions  of  imagination,  or  dreams  ;  much  less,  of  car- 
rying on  any  continued,  or  connected,  process  of  rational 
thinking.  Indeed,  it  is  conceivable,  if  not  probable,  or 
even  very  certain,  that  the  highest  power  of  soul  in  man, 
under  special  circumstances,  as  when  in  sound  sleep,  or  as 
when  stunned  by  a  blow  on  the  head,  or  under  the  suffoca- 
tion of  carbonic  acid  gas,  or  the  influence  of  chloroform,  or 
in  any  comatose  state  of  the  brain,  or  in  disease  when  near 
the  point  of  unconscious  insensibility,  or  death,  or  when  as 
yet  unborn,  may  sink,  or  only  rise,  for  the  time  being,  to  a 
like  diminutive  degree  of  psychical  power,  and  yet  be  a  dis- 
tinct living  soul.  It  must  be  admitted  that  insects  and 
molluscs,  say,  for  instance,  the  bee,  with  his  skilful  in- 
stincts and  industrial  economy  in  the  composite  organic 
structure  of  the  swarm,  or  the  cuttle-fish,  with  his  larger 
cerebral  ganglion,  his  great  powers  of  motion,  and  his  cun- 
ning arts  of  self-protection,  possess  the  power  and  faculty 


550  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

of  voluntary  motion,  at  least ;  but  this,  perhaps,  need  not 
argue  more  of  psychical  power,  or  self-directing  will,  than  a 
simple  power  of  choice  between  present  conflicting  sensa- 
tions, in  conformity  also  with  the  mechanical,  physiological, 
and  other  physical  conditions,  which  result  from  their  organ- 
ization and  the  state  of  existence  in  which  they  live.  If 
the  act  of  the  bee  in  returning  straight  to  his  hive  when 
laden  with  honey  from  the  flowery  mead,  wherein  he  seems 
to  have  something  of  the  faculty  of  the  wild  Indian  in  the 
deep  woods,  if  the  act  of  the  cuttle-fish  in  darkening  the 
waters  with  his  ink  when  danger  threatens,  necessarily  im- 
plies some  degree  of  memory  as  well  as  an  act  of  will, 
or  choice,  we  may  as  easily  allow  the  memory  as  the 
choice,  and  also  such  small  degree  of  psychical  power,  or 
soul,  as  is  therein  necessarily  implied ;  and  in  this  memory, 
there  is  also  necessarily  implied  some  small  faculty  of  im- 
agination, that  is,  a  capability  of  framing  ideal  conceptions 
in  a  thinking  soul,  however  limited  in  amount  and  degree 
of  power.  In  general,  nerves  and  ganglia  are  plainly 
subservient  to  the  physiological  processes  of  the  animal 
economy  merely.  The  three  great  ganglia,  which  gradu- 
ally become  concentrated  into  the  head,  are  as  clearly 
subservient,  in  the  first  instance,  and  excepting  only  the 
cerebral,  first  and  last,  to  those  functions  of  sensation  and 
muscular  motion,  for  which  an  excito-motory  and  reflex 
activity  of  a  merely  physiological  nature  may  be  considered 
as  sufficient.  But  this  cerebral  ganglion,  even  in  these 
Articulates  and  Molluscs,  as  later  among  the  Vertebrates, 
would  seem  to  be  the  seat,  also,  of  some  small  degree  of 
that  higher  kind  of  power,  which  can  only  be  designated  as 
psychical  power,  or  soul  that  thinks  and  moves  itself. 

As  we  ascend  the  scale  in  the  Vertebrate  Branch,  we 
find  an  increased  development  of  these  same  ganglia,  cor- 
responding with  the  increased  faculties  of  sensation  and  the 
increased  power  and  complexity  of  muscular  motion ;  and 
with  the  enlargement  of  the  cerebral  sensory  ganglia  into 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENX'E.  551 

expanded  cerebral  hemispheres,  with  an  ever  increasing 
proportion  in  size,  convolution,  and  fineness  of  texture 
therein  as  the  scale  mounts,  we  find  this  same  psychical 
power  exhibited,  everywhere  and  throughout,  in  a  very 
nearly,  if  not  an  exactly,  corresponding  proportion  ;  so  that 
no  one  can  deny,  for  instance,  that  the  psychical  powers  of 
the  higher  apes,  as  in  the  Orang,  Chimpanzee,  and  Gorilla, 
approach  as  much  more  nearly  to  those  of  man,  on  the 
whole,  than  do  those  of  the  other  inferior  orders  of  ani- 
mals, as  the  structure  and  development  of  their  cerebral 
hemispheres,  and  indeed  all  the  rest  of  their  organization 
and  structure,  approximate  more  nearly  than  the  other  to 
the  human  type.  Nor  does  the  scale  stop  here :  it  still 
continues  to  ascend,  only  with  a  proportionately  less  degree 
of  difference  in  the  advance  upward  through  the  ascending 
races  or  species  of  men.  The  result  of  all  ethnological 
study  goes  to  establish  this  fact ;  and  though  there  be  a 
wide  gulf  between  the  highest  living  species  of  ape,  and  the 
lowest  existing  species  of  man,  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that 
some  human  tribes,  lowest  in  the  living  scale,  and  only  not 
yet  quite  extinct,  (and  many  species,  or  distinct  tribes,  have 
doubtless  long  since  become  extinct  in  the  lapse  of  im- 
mense geological  ages  since  the  Pliocene  man  lived,)  for 
instance,  the  Papuas  of  the  East  Indian  Islands  and  Aus- 
tralia, are  found  to  be  utterly  incapable  of  abstract  notions, 
that  is,  general  rational  ideas  or  conceptions,  or  any  kind 
of  abstruse  reasoning.  It  is  just  so  with  the  American  In- 
dian and  other  inferior  races,  the  African  Negro  inclusive,  in 
greater  or  less  degree  only.  Thoreau  found  it  to  be  so  with 
the  civilized  Indians  of  the  Maine  woods ;  and  he  was  a 
good  observer  of  such  facts.  The  Gorilla,  or  Chimpanzee, 
may  have  sensation,  voluntary  motion,  will,  and  understand- 
ing enough  to  come  down  from  his  tree  and  warm  himself 
by  a  deserted  camp-fire,  but  not  reason,  foresight,  or 
rational  thinking  power  enough  to  put  on  more  wood  when 
the  fire  burns  down,  as  the  naturalists  say ;  and  yet  he 


552  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

may  have  a  very  considerable  amount  of  self-conscious,  self- 
directing  power  or  will,  with  memory  and  imagination  ;  — 
some  not  inconsiderable  degree  of  thinking  soul.  The  wild 
naked  Papuas,  or  the  Hottentots,  four  feet  and  a  half  in 
height,  may  have  reason  enough  to  do  acts  of  this  kind,  but 
scarcely  more ;  for  they  have  never  had  understanding, 
invention,  power  of  thought,  or  skill  and  sense  enough,  in 
the  course  of  long  ages,  to  raise  themselves  above  the  con- 
dition of  wild  men  of  the  woods,  nor  sufficient  intelligence 
or  rational  thinking  power,  to  be  able  to  comprehend,  by 
the  help  of  any  teaching,  the  general  ideas,  the  higher 
reasonings,  and  more  comprehensive  conceptions,  nor  the 
arts  and  sciences,  of  the  superior  races  of  men.  The 
lower  races  are  scarcely  more  than  grown  up  children  : 
they  represent  the  several  stages  of  the  childhood  of  the 
human  race.  The  American  Indian,  though  somewhat 
more  capable,  is  still  but  little  better  than  a  natural-born 
Caliban,  — 

"  A  devil,  a  born  devil,  on  whose  nature 

Nurture  can  never  stick ;  on  whom  my  pains, 

Humanely  taken,  all,  all  lost,  quite  lost; 

And  as  with  age  his  body  uglier  grows, 

So  his  mind  cankers."  —  Temp.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

With  them,  all  progress  is,  and  must  be,  slow  and 
gradual,  and  for  the  most  part  in  their  own  best  way.  John 
Elliot's  converted  Naticks  are  extinct,  and  their  agglutinate, 
polysynthetic  Bible  is  a  dead  tongue.  In  the  course  of 
unnumbered  geological  aeons,  the  white  type  is  reached. 
In  the  lapse  of  untold  centuries,  the  Turanian  grows  into  a 
Chinese  straight-jacket ;  the  Gangetic  Malay,  into  a  Hindu ; 
the  Nilotic  African,  into  an  Egyptian  ;  the  American  In- 
dian, into  an  Aztec,  or  I nca- Peruvian  ;  the  Caucasian,  into 
a  Bactrian,  Assyrian,  Chaldaean,  Hebrew,  Grecian,  Roman, 
European.  Within  the  gently  stretching  envelope,  each 
lives,  grows,  expands,  improves,  and  is  transmuted.  Take 
either  suddenly  out  of  it,  and  he  suffers,  or  perishes,  as 
when  you  wrench  a  turtle  out  of  his  shell.     Boat-heads, 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  553 

flat-heads,  and  pigmy  dwarfs,  become  fossil,  before  the  ad- 
vance of  more  gigantic  long-heads  and  high-heads.     The 
westward-flowing  white   streams  of  the   temperate  zones 
overwhelm  the  inferior  indigenes,  or  sweep  them  aside  into 
bogs  and  mountain  fastnesses,  or  strand  them  upon  remote, 
inhospitable  shores.     Guanches,  Tasmanians,  Tahitians,  In- 
dians, Negroes,  vanish  into  utter  darkness,  before  the  burn- 
ing face  of  European  civilization  ;  or  the  civilization,  flow- 
ing backward  upon  the  tropical  zones,  is  itself  extinguished 
in  the  dark  multitude,  as  a  light  goes  out  in  carbonic  acid. 
Thfc  difference  is  not  so  much  a  difference  in  kind,  or  in 
essence,  as  a  difference   of  degree;  but  as  the  pyschical 
power  increases  in  degree,  as  we  mount  in  the  scale,  there 
is  exhibited   that  ever-enlarging  scope,  and   that   conse- 
quently increasing  number  and  variety  of  capabilities  and 
faculties  which,  in  the  new  and  varied  applications  and 
uses  that  arise  out  of  and  go  along  with  this  increase  in 
amount  of  power,  present  themselves  to  a  superficial  appre- 
hension as  new,  additional,  and  distinct  mental  powers  or 
faculties ;  and  hence  the  illusion  of  the  phrenologists,  the 
mental  physiologists,  and  all  those   materialistic   philoso- 
phers, who  try  to  imagine  that  all  the  phenomena  of  mind 
are  a  mere  result  of  the  physical  organization  and  a  direct 
effect  produced  by  the  organic  machine ;  that  memory  con- 
sists merely  in  an  accumulated  volume  and  mass  of  sensa- 
tional impressions  stamped  and  recorded,  one  set  above 
another  (with  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie),  upon  the  gossamer 
tissues  of  the  cortical  layers  of  the  brain ;   and  that  all 
thought  is  a  product  of  nervous  electricity,  or  some  kind  of 
arterial  brain-flow  and  consumption  of  neurine,  as  light 
comes  of  the  burning  of  a  candle,  or  time-keeping  from 
the  running  of  a  clock. 

The  necessary  laws  of  thought,  constituting  the  imper- 
sonal reason  (as  defined  by  Cousin),  exist  absolutely ; 
that  is,  as  necessary  fact,  and  are  common  to  all  thinking 
souls,  from  insect  to  man,  and  from  man  to  his  Maker. 


554  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

Hence,  the  only  difference  there  can  be,  in  respect  of  pure 
reason,  between  one  created  soul  and  another,  whatever 
the  place  of  either  in  the  scale  of  existence,  is  a  difference 
in  the  extent  and  measure  in  which  each  finite  soul  may  be 
able  to  share,  partake,  use,  employ,  and  exercise  these 
laws  and  this  reason  in  perceiving,  conceiving,  thinking, 
and  knowing ;  for  these  operations  of  the  mind,  as  far  as 
they  go,  must  necessarily  be,  and  always  are,  carried  on  in 
exact  accordance  with  these  laws,  whether  the  special 
thinker  himself  be  aware  of  it  or  not.  This  measure  may  be 
large  or  small  in  the  given  instance,  and  the  use  made  of 
it  may  be  in  some  degree  more  or  less,  much  or  little, 
good  or  bad,  logical  or  illogical,  wise  or  unwise.  The  soul 
in  itself  is  active  choosing  cause  and  thinking  power,  the 
"  sparkle  of  our  creation  light,"  the  "  lamp  of  God " 
shining  within  us,  and  the  light  of  the  understanding 
whereby  the  mind  intellectually  and  spiritually  sees,  knows, 
perceives,  conceives,  understands,  comprehends,  and  is 
self-conscious,  and  the  power  whereby  it  acts,  wills,  and 
creates  ;  and  its  existence  as  such  is  an  ultimate  and  final 
fact.  Any  man  may  deny  the  fact,  not  see  it,  and  dis- 
believe it ;  yet  the  fact  still  exists  and  remains  so.  Such 
being  the  nature  of  it,  it  is  plain  that  neither  soul,  nor 
thinking,  can  be  the  result  or  effect  of  the  physical  organi- 
zation, nor  a  simple  product  of  the  working  of  the  physio- 
logical machine,  though  a  finite  soul  may  never  exist  at  all 
without  an  organic  body;  that  brain  and  mind, speaking  of 
the  finite  creature,  do  not  stand  in  the  relation  to  one 
another  of  cause  and  effect ;  that  mind  and  brain,  speaking 
of  the  divine  mind,  and  the  created  brain,  do  stand  in  the 
relation  to  one  another  of  cause  and  effect ;  but  that  the 
true  relation  of  the  finite  mind,  or  soul,  to  the  brain  and 
general  structure  of  the  body,  is  one  of  correspondence  and 
adaptation  only,  as  Swedenborg  said.  And  the  specializa- 
tion of  the  soul  is  made  to  correspond  with  the  special 
organic  body:  the  larger  and  better  the  receiving  basin, 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  555 

the  more  powerful  will  be  the  swell  of  ocean  that  streams 
into  it ;  and  the  more  soul,  the  nearer  to  God. 

As  a  special  subject,  the  activity  of  any  given  soul,  and 
its  power  as  thinking  cause,  is  as  primary,  original,  funda- 
mental, and  immortal,  as  the  Divine  Soul  itself,  the  totality 
of  all  power  and  cause :  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  speci- 
alty, that  a  finite  soul  is  secondary  and  a  creation.  But  the 
thought  and  consciousness  of  God  must  necessarily  be  in 
the  unity  and  totality  of  his  being,  as  such,  wherein  is  the 
Divine  Personality.  The  personality  of  the  special  thinker, 
in  like  manner,  must  be  only  in  the  unity  and  totality  of  the 
special  soul,  as  such.  Consciousness  is  the  fact  of  being 
and  knowing  ;  and  it  can  by  no  possibility  be  more  extensive 
than  the  thinking  personality.  And  the  finite  soul  being 
thus  bounded  off,  as  it  were,  into  a  separate  and  distinct 
sphere  of  consciousness  of  its  own,  there  can  be  no  possibil- 
ity of  its  being  or  becoming  directly  conscious,  that  is,  know- 
ing, of  the  thought,  knowledge,  purposes,  or  foreordination 
of  God,  nor  any  conceivable  possibility  of  an  intermediate 
flow  of  thoughts,  ideas,  conceptions,  or  revelations,  out  of 
the  one  mind  into  the  other,  whether  that  of  a  Moses,  an 
Isaiah,  a  Jesus,  or  a  Pope.  A  man  may  become  conscious, 
indirectly,  of  some  part  of  the  divine  thought  and  provi- 
dence, by  discovering  and  seeing  it  in  the  fore-front  view  of 
the  universe,  an  infinite  phantasmagoria,  as  it  were,  capable 
of  being  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  his  mind's  eye,  which  is 
always  able  to  find  therein  as  much  revelation  as  it  can  dis- 
cover, see,  or  in  any  way  receive  and  comprehend,  or  have 
need  to  know ;  but  never  any  more.  There  can  be  no 
back-door  passage  from  the  one  consciousness  ?.nto  the 
other,  and  it  is  of  no  use  to  look  in  the  back  of  the  mirror : 
it  can  be  conceived  only  in  the  heated  fancies  of  uncritical 
thinkers  and  mystical  dreamers.  The  open  passages  are 
all  in  front :  we  stand  face  to  face  with  our  God.  It  should 
be  left  to  spiritual-rapping  doctors  only,  to  believe  that 
knowledge,  foreknowledge,  revelation,  divination,  prophe- 


556  THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE. 

cies,  auguries,  gifts  of  healing,  helps,  and  diversities  of 
tongues,  are,  or  can  be,  poured  into  the  human  soul,  as  it 
were,  through  an  imaginary  hole  in  the  back  of  the  head. 

Since  the  invention  of  the  electric  telegraph,  certain 
visionary  dreamers,  possessing  souls  only  half  awake,  have 
abandoned  the  theory  of  influxions,  and  imagined  that  dis- 
embodied souls  or  spirits  could  send  communications  from 
the  spirit-world  by  some  sort  of  telegraphic  rapping.  That 
a  departed  soul  may  live  in  a  spiritual  form  may  be  very 
possible,  if  not  highly  probable,  or  indeed  quite  certain. 
Some  persons  have  believed  that  they  walked  the  upper 
air,  like  the  spectral  ghosts  that  poets,  superstitious  persons, 
and  diseased  minds  have  created  in  their  wandering  fan- 
cies ;  but  since  it  has  become  scientifically  demonstrable, 
that  no  such  vision  of  a  ghost  could  possibly  be  visible  to 
any  human  eye,  telegraphic  rappings  from  imaginary  in- 
visible spirits  have  been  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  vis- 
ible spectres.  As  a  living  power  of  thought,  a  soul  can 
act,  directly,  in  its  own  inner  sphere  of  self  only ;  and  in- 
directly, upon  the  world  external  to  itself  and  upon  human 
senses,  only  by  means  of  organic  physical  instruments,  and 
through  the  agency  of  material  means.  A  human  soul,  as 
we  see,  has  power  to  move  an  arm  of  flesh  and  bone,  and 
so  to  produce  great  effects  on  solid  bodies.  But  here, 
we  have  the  necessary  gradation  of  organized  material 
structures  and  instruments,  rising  by  degrees  of  solidity 
and  strength  from  the  most  ethereal  invisible  particles,  mi- 
croscopic cells,  finest'  conceivable  fibres  and  gossamer  tis- 
sues of  the  brain,  through  the  infinite  ascending  complica- 
tion of  ganglionic,  nervous,  vascular,  muscular,  and  bony 
structures  up  to  that  completed  complex  and  substantial 
instrument,  the  arm,  with  its  terminal,  ingeniously  con- 
structed hand,  capable  of  great  power.  And  so,  too,  we 
may  imagine  a  spirit  soul  to  have  a  spiritual  body,  with  a 
corresponding  and  similar  structure  of  brain,  nerve,  muscle, 
bone,  arm  and  hand,  made  of  forms  of  spiritual  substance 


THE  LESSER  PROVIDENCE.  557 

(as  indeed  all  substance  is  spiritual)  ;  but  whatever  power 
or  force  such  an  organization  of  body  might  be  able  to  ex- 
ercise upon  other  spiritual  bodies  of  like  nature  and  con- 
stitution, it  is  clear  that  if  it  be  so  thin  and  ethereal  as  to 
be  invisible  to  the  microscope,  and  wholly  imperceptible  to 
the  most  delicate  scientific  tests  of  the  presence  of  matter 
or  force,  it  would  be  utterly  absurd  to  imagine  it  could,  by 
any  conceivable  possibility,  so  rap  a  table  at  the  will  of  a 
spirit  soul  as  to  produce  a  vibration  in  solid  wood,  or  in  so 
dense  a  fluid  as  the  air,  which  is  the  only  medium  of  sound 
to  the  ear,  any  more  than  could  the  imaginary  hand  of  an 
impossibly  visible  ghost.  Both  our  eyes  and  our  ears  are 
forever  closed  to  any  such  agency,  and  our  souls  and  our 
senses  alike  are  happily  inaccessible  to  all  such  communi- 
cations :  so  says  Hamlet :  — 

"  And  for  my  soul,  what  can  it  do  to  that, 
Being  a  thing  immortal  as  itself?  " 

Honest  ghosts  have  scarcely  been  suspected  of  such  im- 
possibilities :  even  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father,  that  "  per- 
turbed spirit,"  old  truepenny,  "  the  fellow  i'  the  cellar- 
age," that  was  "  hie  et  ubique,"  and  could  "  work  i'  the 
earth  "  like  a  mole,  knew  better  than  to  undertake  to  rap 
anything.  He  only  ventured  to  speak  aloud  ;  and  even 
that  voice  was  never  heard  by  mortal  ear  until  uttered  by 
some  living  medium  under  the  stage.  Even  when  poeti- 
cally visible,  face  to  face  with  Hamlet,  he  cut  a  long  story 
short  with  this  sensible  speech  :  — 

"  But  that  I  am  forbid 
To  tell  the  secrets  of  my  prison-house, 
I  could  a  tale  unfold,  whose  lightest  word 
Would  harrow  up  thy  soul,  freeze  thy  young  blood, 
Make  thy  two  eyes,  like  stars,  start  from  their  spheres, 
Thy  knotted  and  combined  locks  to  part, 
And  each  particular  hair  to  stand  on  end, 
Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porpentine: 
But  this  eternal  blazon  must  not  be 
To  ears  of  flesh  and  blood."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

And  all  spiritual  rappers  will  know  better,  when  they 


558  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

have  learned  more,  than  to  undertake  any  such  perform- 
ance :  that  work  belongs  only  to  poets.  In  the  mean  time, 
all  may  rest  assured,  that  in  literal  truth  this  "  eternal 
blazon  "  must  not  be,  and,  in  the  order  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence in  the  known  world,  cannot  be,  to  "  ears  of  flesh  and 
blood."  The  universe  is  neither  made  nor  governed  so,  nor 
are  men  to  be  instructed  here  in  that  way ;  and  the  sooner 
all  rappers  find  this  out,  the  better  it  may  be  for  them,  both 
here  and  hereafter.  There  should  be  established  for  their 
use  "  houses  of  deceits  of  the  senses,  all  manner  of  feats  of 
juggling,  false  apparitions,  impostures,  and  illusions,  and 
their  fallacies ; "  and  they  should  beware  of  the  fate  and 
the  curse  of  Macbeth. 

§  5.    REVERENCE    AND    DEGREE. 

That  sprightly  antithesis  of  Pope,  straining  a  truth  to 
point  his  wit,  — 

"  The  wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind," 

like  much  other  wit  and  many  old  saws,  contains  more  point 
than  truth ;  and  as  is  usual,  when  vulgar  satire  flings  its 
envenomed  shafts  at  what  is  nobler  than  itself,  the  slander 
is  apt  to  stick  better  than  the  truth.  Bacon  was  not  the 
meanest  of  mankind.  He  was  not  mean  at  all,  unless  by 
some  mean  standard  of  meanness,  but  one  of  the  loftiest 
and  noblest  of  his  time,  as  well  as  one  of  the  wisest  and 
brightest  of  all  time.  That  he  partook  in  some  measure  of 
the  abuses  of  the  time,  and  shared  the  faults  of  good  men 
in  all  times,  need  not  be  denied.  He  was  not  a  martyr,  nor 
a  hero,  in  any  ordinary  sense  ;  but  in  a  very  extraordinary 
sense,  he  might  be  found  to  have  been  both.  He  did  not 
attempt  impracticabilities,  nor  absurd  impossibilities  ;  but 
he  was  certainly  one  of  those  "  clearest  burning  lamps,"  * 

and 

"  clearest  gods,  who  make  them  honors 
Of  men's  impossibilities  "  ; 

1  Bacon. 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  559 

"  which,  nevertheless,"  says  he,  "  it  seemeth  they  propound 
rather  as  impossibilities  and  wishes  than  as  things  within 
the  compass  of  human  comprehension."  1 

Without  stopping,  now,  to  extenuate  his  faults,  such  as 
they  were  (and  they  have  been  enormously  magnified),  it 
may  be  remembered  here,  that  he  was  wiser  than  to  break 
his  own  head  against  the  dead  stone  walls  and  brazen  idols 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  He  knew  it  was  better  to  set 
the  slow  hand  of  all-conquering  Time  at  work  upon  them, 
and  he  did  more  than  any  other  of  his  time  toward  con- 
triving the  plans,  indicating  the  ways,  inventing  the  means, 
and  constructing  the  ideal  engines  and  instruments  for 
their  demolition.  He  made  a  virtue  of  necessity,  perhaps, 
and  adapted  himself  as  well  as  he  could  to  the  medium  in 
which  his  life  was  cast ;  and  he  made  use  of  the  materials 
and  instruments  that  were  at  hand  for  such  uses  as  they 
were  fit  for,  and  for  objects,  ends,  and  aims,  far  higher, 
nobler,  and  better,  than  was  dreamed  of  by  many  in  his 
own  time,  or  even  by  a  large  portion  of  posterity  down  to 
this  day.  Comparatively  speaking,  he  lived  in  an  age  of 
darkness  and  despotism,  not  in  an  age  of  light  and  liberty. 
His  "  Genius  "  could  not  have  "  the  air  of  freedom  "  ;  and 
this  he  well  knew.  Hamlet  gives  sage  advice  :  — 
"  Not  this,  by  no  mean9,  —  that  I  bid  you  do : .  .  . 

No,  in  despite  of  sense,  and  secrecy, 

Unpeg  the  basket  on  the  house's  top, 

Let  the  birds  fly,  and,  like  the  famous  ape, 

To  try  conclusions  in  the  basket  creep, 

And  break  your  own  neck  down."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

Sovereignty,  in  that  age,  resided  in  the  king,  not  in  the 
people,  and  if  he  may  be  judged  by  his  writings,  it  was 
certainly  not  Bacon's  fault,  if  the  reigning  sovereign  were 
not  really  as  wise  as  Solomon  and  a  true  vicegerent  of  the 
Divine  Majesty  ;  for  he  taught  that  kings  u  be  live  gods  on 
earth,"  as  the  play  also  teaches  :  — 

1  Valerius  Terminus. 


560  REVERENCE  AXD  DEGREE. 

"  Kings  are  earth's  gods ;  in  vice  their  law 's  their  will, 
And  if  Jove  stray,  who  dares  say  Jove  doth  ill?  " 

Per.,  Act  I.  Sc.  L 

And  again  thus,  in  the  "  Richard  II. "  :  — 

"Boling.  With  all  my  heart 

I  pardon  him. 
Duch.  A  god  on  Earth  thou  art."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

And  again  in  the  "  Rape  of  Lucrece  " :  — 

"  Thou  seemest  not  what  thou  art,  a  god,  a  king, 
For  kings  like  gods  should  govern  everything." 

He  had  to  take  "  the  age  and  body  of  the  time,  his  form 
and  pressure,"  for  what  it  was,  as  he  found  it,  believing, 
perhaps,  with  the  play,  again,  that 

"  All  places  that  the  eye  of  heaven  visits 
Are  to  the  wise  man  ports  and  happy  havens. 
Teach  thy  necessity  to  reason  thus ; 
There  is  no  virtue  like  necessity."  — Rich.  II,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

In  Euripides,  the  same  doctrine  stands  thus  :  — 

"  Wise  men  have  said,  (it  is  no  speech  of  mine,) 
There  's  nothing  stronger,  or  more  terrible 
Than  dire  necessity."  —  Helene,  512-14. 

Probably,  Bacon  alluded  to  this  very  passage,  when  he  said, 
"  It  was  said  among  the  ancients,  *  Necessiiatem  ex  omnibus 
rebus  esse  fortissimum '  "  1  (Necessity  is  the  strongest  of  all 
things).     And  it  is  repeated  in  this  same  play,  thus  :  — 

"K.  Rich.  I  am  sworn  brother,  sweet, 

To  grim  necessity ;  and  he  and  I 
Will  keep  a  league  till  death."  — Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  again,  the  same  idea  appears  in  the  second  part  of  the 

"  Henry  IV.,"  thus :  — 

"K.  Hen.    Are  these  things,  then,  necessities  ? 
Then  let  us  meet  them  like  necessities."  —  Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

And  there  may  be  some  truth  in  the  sonnet,  as  applied  to 
himself:  — 

"  'T  is  better  to  be  vile,  than  vile  esteem'd, 
When  not  to  be  receives  reproach  of  being, 

i  De  Aug.  Scient.,  Lib.  VIII. 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  561 

And  the  just  pleasure  lost,  which  is  so  deem'd, 

Not  by  our  feeling,  but  by  others'  seeing. 

For  why  should  others'  false  adulterate  eyes 

Give  salutation  to  my  sportive  blood  ? 

Or  on  my  frailties  why  are  frailer  spies, 

Which  in  their  wills  count  bad  what  I  think  good? 

No,  I  am  that  I  am,  and  they  that  level 

At  my  abuses  reckon  up  their  own : 

I  may  be  straight,  though  they  themselves  be  bevel; 

By  their  rank  thoughts  my  deeds  must  not  be  shewn, 

Unless  this  general  evil  they  maintain, 

All  men  are  bad,  and  in  their  badness  reign."  —  Son.  cxxi. 

And  this,  again,  would  seem  to  echo  almost  the  very  words 
of  Helene  in  Euripides,  which,  being  interpreted,  run 
nearly  thus :  — 

"  Being  no  way  unjust,  I  am  disgrac'd; 
And  this,  to  whomsoever  comes  reproach 
Of  evil  deeds,  belonging  not  to  him, 
Is  worse  than  all  the  vileness  of  the  truth."  —  Helene,  270-3. 

Even  victorious  Caesar,  in  the  play,  could  speak  in  praise 
of  the  fallen  Antony,  admire  his  greatness,  and  lament  his 
fate ;  and  Antony  could  think  the  Egyptian  Cleopatra 
"  thrice  nobler "  than  himself,  when,  forgetting  all  her 
human  frailties,  he  exclaimed,  as  he  imitated  her  example, 
and  fell  upon  his  own  sword,  — 

"  My  queen  and  Eros 
Have,  by  their  brave  instruction,  got  upon  me 
A  nobleness  in  record."  —  AnL  and  Cleo.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  12. 

As  Bacon  says,  "  at  best,  nobleness  is  never  lost,  but  re- 
warded in  itself."  *  And  reading  the  "  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra "  from  the  high  philosophic  point  of  view  of  Plato's 
Republic,  some  touch  of  this  same  nobleness  may  be  dis- 
covered in  it :  — 

"  Ant.    Let  Rome  in  Tyber  melt,  and  the  wide  arch 
Of  the  rang'd  empire  fall !    Here  is  my  space. 
Kingdoms  are  clay :  our  dungy  earth  alike 
Feeds  beast  as  man :  the  nobleness  of  life 
Is  to  do  thus;  when  such  a  mutual  pair, 

l  Letter,  1623. 


562  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

And  such  a  twain  can  do  't,  in  which  I  bind 
On  pain  of  punishment,  the  world  to  wit 
We  stand  up  peerless. 

Cleo.  Excellent  falsehood ! 

Why  did  he  marry  Fulvia,  and  not  love  her?  "  —  Act  1.  Sc.  1. 

Nor  would  Cleopatra  stay  in  this  world,  Antony  being  in 
the  other :  — 

"  Cleo.    0  Antony !    Nay,  I  will  take  thee  too.  — 

[Applying  another  asp. 
What  should  I  stay  —  [Dies. 

Char.     In  this  wide  world  ?  —  So  fare  thee  well.  * 
Now,  boast  thee,  death !  in  thy  possession  lies 
A  lass  unparallel'd."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

This  author's  breadth  of  view,  his  greatness  of  soul,  his 
lofty  standards  of  moral  judgment,  and  his  deep  insight 
into  the  confusions  of  men  and  things,  whereby  the  most 
precious  jewels  are  discovered  where  least  looked  for,  even 
in  the  toad's  head,  and  purified  and  redeemed  from  the 
rubbish  of  affairs,  life,  and  opinion,  which  had  long  con- 
cealed them  from  the  sight  of  most  men,  this  brave  instruc- 
tion, this  nobleness  in  record,  and  these  unparalleled  mor- 
tals, all  together,  reveal  to  our  apprehension  a  genius  and 
a  soul  which  readily  suggests  but  few  living  parallels.  For 
style  and  diction,  depth  and  breadth,  and  all-sided  clearness 
of  vision,  the  "  Cymbeline  "  and  the  "  Troilus  and  Cressida  " 
may  compare  with  the  best  of  the  moderns.  The  open 
secret  is  therein  laid  more  open  ;  but  the  world  will  not  see 
it,  howsoever  open  :  they  will  rather  stay  under  the  clouds, 
and  mope  still  in  theological  fog,  believing  only  — 

"  The  scriptures  of  the  loyal  Leonatus, 
All  turn'd  to  heresy  ?    Away,  away, 
Corrupters  of  my  faith !     You  shall  no  more 
Be  stomachers  to  my  heart.     Thus  may  poor  fools 
Believe  farse  teachers,  though  those  that  are  betray'd, 
Do  feel  the  treason  sharply,  yet  the  traitor 
Stands  in  worse  case  of  woe."  —  Act  111.  Sc.  4. 

i  Mr.  White  reads  "  in  this  wild  world,"  after  the  Folio  of  1623,  which 
reads  "  toilde  world  "  ;  a  misprint,  as  I  believe,  for  wide  world,  the  true 
reading.    See  White's  Shakes.,  XII.  128 ;  Notes,  147. 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  563 

Bacon  would  have  the  true  interpreter  of  nature  pry  more 
deeply  into  this  open  secret,  and  write  a  new  Scripture :  — 
"  We  desire,"  he  says,  "  this  primary  history  to  be  con- 
scientiously collected,  and  as  if  upon  solemn  oath  of  its 
verity  in  every  particular ;  since  it  is  the  volume  of  God's 
works,  and  (so  far  as  a  similitude  between  the  majesty  of 
divine  things  and  the  lowness  of  the  terrene,  may  be  al- 
lowed), as  it  were  another  Scripture  "  ; 1  for,  as  he  con- 
tinues again,  "  this  writing  of  our  Sylva  Sylvarum  is,  to 
speak  properly,  not  a  natural  history,  but  a  high  kind  of 
natural  magic  "  ;  and  according  to  Dr.  Rawley,  it  was  *•  a 
usual  speech  of  his  lordship,"  that  it  was  to  be  "  the  world 
as  God  made  it " ;  that  is,  not  a  work  of  the  imaginations 
of  men,  but  the  work  of  the  divine  mind  ;  and  such  being 
the  nature  of  it,  we  need  not  wonder  that  he  should  call  it 
a  high  kind  of  natural  magic  and  an  actual  Holy  Scripture. 
So  he  says  that  Homer  "  was  made  a  kind  of  Scripture  by 
the  latter  schools  of  the  Grecians  "  ;  and  his  fables  "  seemed 
to  be  like  a  thin  rarefied  air,  which,  from  the  traditions  of 
more  ancient  nations,  fell  into  the  flutes  of  the  Grecians  "  ; 
as  the  celestial  spirits,  in  "  The  Tempest,"  u  melted  into  air, 
into  thin  air." 

According  to  Goethe,  out  of  the  three  reverences,  rev- 
erence for  what  is  above  us,  reverence  for  what  is  around 
us,  and  reverence  for  what  is  under  us,  springs  the  highest 
reverence,  the  reverence  for  one's  self  and  that  true  re- 
litnon,  wherein  a  man  is  "justified  in  reckoning  himself 
the  best  that  God  and  Nature  have  produced,"  as  in  the 

play  :  — 

"  though  mean  and  mighty,  rotting 
Together,  have  one  dust,  yet  reverence 
(That  angel  of  the  world)  doth  make  distinction 
Of  place  'tween  high  and  low."  —  Cymb.,  Act  IV.  8c.  2. 

And  again :  — 

"  The  crown  will  find  an  heir.     Great  Alexander 
Left  his  to  the  worthiest :  so  his  successor 
Was  like  to  be  the  best."—  Winter' $  Tale,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

1  Parasceve,  Works  (Boston),  II.  57. 


564  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

And  again,  thus :  — 

"  Those  that  I  reverence,  those  I  fear,  —  the  wise : 
At  fools  I  laugh,  not  fear  them."  —  Cymb.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

So,  we  may  remember,  Bacon  says,  that  "  the  reverence  of 
a  man's  self  is,  next  religion,  the  chiefest  bridle  of  all 
vices,"  and  that,  *'  whosoever  is  unchaste  cannot  reverence 
himself"  ;  and  we  find  the  same  sentiment  nearly  repeated 
in  idea  (though  not  in  words),  and  enforced  with  all  the 
powers  of  rhetoric,  and  in  a  splendid  amplitude  of  meta- 
phorical expression,  all  drawn  from  the  common  language 
of  the  Christian  religion,  in  this  fine  passage  from  the 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida : "  — 

"  Tro.    This  she  ?  no ;  this  is  Diomed's  Cressida. 
If  beauty  have  a  soul,  this  is  not  she: 
If  souls  guide  vows,  if  vows  be  sanctimony, 
If  sanctimony  be  the  gods'  delight, 
If  there  be  rule  in  unity  itself, 
This  is  not  she.    0  madness  of  discourse, 
That  cause  sets  up  with  and  against  itself! 
Bi-fold  authority !  where  reason  can  revolt 
Without  perdition,  and  loss  assume  all  reason 
"Without  revolt.     This  is,  and  is  not,  Cressid ! 
Within  my  soul  there  doth  conduce  a  fight 
Cf  this  strange  nature,  that  a  thing  inseparate 
Divides  more  wider  than  the  sky  and  earth ; 
And  yet  the  spacious  breadth  of  this  division 
Admits  no  orifice  for  a  point,  as  subtle 
As  Ariachne's  broken  woof,  to  enter. 
Instance,  0  instance!  strong  as  Pluto's  gates; 
Cressid  is  mine,  tied  with  the  bonds  of  Heaven : 
Instance,  0  instance !  strong  as  Heaven  itself; 
The  bonds  of  Heaven  are  slipp'd,  dissolv'd,  and  loos'd; 
And  with  another  knot,  five-finger  tied, 
The  fractions  of  her  faith,  orts  of  her  love, 
The  fragments,  scraps,  the  bits,  and  greasy  reliques 
Of  her  o'er-eaten  faith,  are  bound  to  Diomed." 

Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

Bacon  comprehended  "  the  nature  of  this  great  city  of 
the  world,"  as  he  expresses  it.  So  Carlyle  says  of  Shake- 
speare, that  "  in  his  mind  the  world  is  a  whole ;  he  figures 
it  as  Providence  governs  it ; a  world  of  earnest- 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  565 

ness  and  sport,  of  solemn  cliff  and  gay  plain " ;  or  as 
Bacon  also  says,  again,  comparing  poetry  with  history  as 
a  mode  of  representing  acts,  or  events,  "  poesy  feigns  them 
more  jnst  in  retribution  and  more  according  to  revealed 
providence."  And  what  Schlegel  said  of  Shakespeare  may 
be  said  as  well,  —  nay,  rather  better,  —  of  Bacon  himself, 
that  he  had  "  deeply  reflected  on  character  and  passion,  on 
the  progress  of  events  and  human  destinies,  on  the  human 
constitution,  on  all  the  things  and  relations  of  the  world  "  • 
and  again,  that  "  the  world  of  spirits  and  nature  have  laid 
all  their  treasures  at  his  feet ;  in  strength  a  demi-god,  in 
profundity  of  view  a  prophet,  in  all-seeing  wisdom  a  pro- 
tecting spirit  of  the  higher  order,  he  lowers  himself  to  mor- 
tals as  if  unconscious  of  his  superiority,  and  is  as  open  and 
unassuming  as  a  child."  *  But  of  most  men,  who  will  not, 
or  who  cannot,  "  so  by  degrees  learn  to  read  in  the  vol- 
umes "  of  God's  universe, 

"  I'  the  world's  volume 
Our  Britain  seems  as  of  it,  but  not  in  it ; 
In  a  great  pool,  a  swan's  nest " ;  — Cymb.,  Act  HI.  Sc.  4. 

for  they  will  continue  to  believe  with  the  fool,  Thersites, 
that  it  is,  in  God  and  Nature  as  in  Cressida,  — 
"  A  juggling  trick,  —  to  be  secretly  open."  —  Tro.  and  Cr.,  Act  V.  Sc  4. 

They  will 

"  rather  think  this  not  Cressid  " ; 

and  so  thinking,  they  will  proceed  to  create  for  themselves 
an  ideal  Cressid,  after  such  pattern  as  they  have;  for 
"  they  have  ever  left  the  oracles  of  God's  works,  and 
adored  the  deceiving  and  deformed  imagery,  which  the  un- 
equal mirrours  of  their  own  minds  have  represented  unto 
them."  But  having  so  created  the  human  ideal  idol,  they 
must  find,  sooner  or  later,  that 

"  this  is,  and  is  not,  Cressid." 

And  hence,  losing  sight  of  all  just  reverences,  the  highest 
l  Lectures  on  Dram.  Lit,  by  A.  W.  Schlegel,  p.  290-298  (Philad.,  1333). 


566  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

wisdom,  the  true  religion,  and  all  just  conception  of  the  due 
line  of  order  and  authentic  place  of  things  in  this  universe, 
there  reigns  in  the  minds  of  men,  for  the  most  part,  a  con- 
fusion of  ideas  and  opinions,  and  a  moral  disorder,  which  is 
not  merely  a 

"  musical  confusion 
Of  hounds  and  echo  in  conjunction," 

but   an   appalling   chaos,  equal  to   that   of  Agamemnon's 

Grecian  camp :  — 

"  Degree  being  vizarded, 
Th'  unworfhiest  shews  as  fairly  in  the  mask. 
The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets  and  this  centre, 
Observe  degree,  priority,  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form, 
Office,  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order: 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet  Sol 
In  noble  eminence  enthron'd  and  spher'd 
Amidst  the  other ;  whose  med'cinable  eye 
Corrects  the  ill  aspects  of  planets  evil, 
And  posts,  like  the  commandment  of  a  king, 
Sans  check,  to  good  and  bad.     But  when  the  planets, 
In  evil  mixture,  to  disorder  wander, 
What  plagues,  and  what  portents !  what  mutiny ! 
What  raging  of  the  sea,  shaking  of  the  earth, 
Commotion  in  the  winds,  frights,  changes,  horrors, 
Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 
The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states 
Quite  from  their  fixture !     O,  when  degree  is  shak'd, 
Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
The  enterprise  is  sick.     How  could  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 
Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores, 
The  primogenity  and  due  of  birth, 
Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels, 
But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place  ? 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 
And,  hark,  what  discord  follows !  each  thing  meets 
In  mere  oppugnancy :  the  bounded  waters 
Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores, 
•  And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe : 
Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility, 
And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead : 
Force  should  be  right ;  or,  rather,  right  and  wrong 
(Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides) 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  567 

Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 

Then  every  thing  includes  itself  in  power, 

Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite ; 

And  appetite,  a  universal  wolf, 

Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey, 

And  last  eat  up  himself.    Great  Agamemnon, 

This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 

Follows  the  choking."  —  Act  1.  Sc.  3. 

So  says  Bacon,  "  It  is  owing  to  justice  that  man  is  a  god 

to  man,  and  not  a  wolf";  *  and  "when  the  judgment-seat 

takes  the  part  of  injustice,  there  succeeds  a  state  of  general 

robbery,  and  men  turn  wolves  to  each  other,  according  to 

the  adage  "  ;  *  and  — 

"  Thieves  for  their  robbery  have  authority, 
When  judges  steal  themselves."  —  Meat,  for  Meat.,  Act  11.  Sc.  2. 

And  again,  he  says,  "  If  to  be  just  be  not  to  do  that  to 

another  which  you  would  not  have  another  do  to  you,  then 

is  mercy  justice  "  :  — 

"  And  earthly  power  doth  then  shew  likest  God's 
When  mercy  seasons  justice."  —  Mer.  of  Pew.,  Act  IV.  Sc  1. 

Indeed,  the  careful  reader,  who  will  diligently  compare  the 
"  Antitheses  of  Justice,"  a  mere  example  of  a  collection  of 
common  places  under  the  head  of  "  Promptuary  or  Pre- 
paratory Store."  thrown  into  that  very  notable  Book  VII. 
of  the  De  Augmentis,  on  the  Examplar  of  Good,  the  Colors 
of  Good  and  Evil,  moral  knowledge  concerning  the  Georgics 
of  the  mind,  and  the  "  Antitheses  of  Things,"  with  the 
first  scene  of  the  fourth  act  of  the  ■  Merchant  of  Venice," 
can  scarcely  fail  to  see,  that  the  fine  exposition  of  the 
quality  of  mercy  and  justice,  there  given,  is  but  an  amplifi- 
cation in  verse  of  these  very  antitheses  ;  and  by  comparing 
also  the  Aphorisms  on  "  Universal  Justice  or  the  Fountains 
of  Equity  "  in  civil  society,  in  the  VHIth  Book,*  with  the 
"Measure  for  Measure,"  he  will  discover  therein  a  still 
further  illustration  of  these  same  doctrines  of  justice  and  the 

l  Trans,  of  the  De  Aug.,  Work*  (Boston),  IX.  166. 
«  Trans,  of  the  De  Aug.  259;  Erasmus'  Adagia,  I.  70. 
«  Works  (Boston),  K.  311. 


568  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

u  three  fountains  of  Injustice,"  namely,  mere  force,  a  ma- 
licious ensnarement  under  color  of  law,  and  hardness  of 
the  law  itself,  until  Escalus  exclaims  :  — 

"  Which  is  the  wiser  here?  Justice,  or  Iniquity?  "  —  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

The  antitheses  of  justice  and  injustice,  chastity  and  lewd- 
ness, are  therein  exhibited  as  in  a  model,  after  his  own 
usual  manner,  by  contrast  of  opposites,  whereby  the  limits, 
or  antinomies,  of  the  passions  and  moral  laws,  are  more 
easily  represented,  more  distinctly  defined,  and  better  illus- 
trated by  example.  The  same  "  commission  "  for  the  re- 
form of  obsolete  laws  appears  in  both.  "  For,"  says  the 
Aphorism,  "  since  an  express  statute  is  not  regularly  abol- 
ished by  disuse,  it  comes  to  pass  that  through  this  contempt 
of  obsolete  laws  the  authority  of  the  rest  is  somewhat  im- 
paired. And  from  this  ensues  a  torment  like  that  of 
Mezentius,  whereby  the  living  laws  are  stifled  in  the  em- 
braces of  the  dead."  ..."  For  though  it  has  been  well  said, 
1  that  no  one  should  be  wiser  than  the  laws,'  yet  this  must 
be  understood  of  waking  and  not  of  sleeping  laws."  1  And 
so  says  the  Duke  (disguised  as  the  Friar)  in  the  play :  — 

"  My  business  in  this  State 
Made  me  a  looker-on  here  in  Vienna, 
Where  I  have  seen  corruption  boil  and  bubble 
Till  it  o'errun  the  stew :  laws  for  all  faults, 
But  faults  so  countenanc'd  that  the  strong  statutes 
Stand,  like  the  forfeits  in  a  barber's  shop, 
As  much  in  mock  as  mark."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

And  again  :  — 

"  Duke.    We  have  strict  statutes,  and  most  biting  laws, 
(The  needful  bits  and  curbs  for  headstrong  steeds,) 
Which  for  these  fourteen  years  we  have  let  sleep, 
Even  like  an  o'ergrown  lion  in  a  cave, 
That  goes  not  out  to  prey.    Now,  as  fond  fathers, 
Having  bound  up  the  threat' ning  twigs  of  birch 
Only  to  stick  it  in  their  children's  sight 
For  terror,  not  to  use,  in  time  the  rod 
Becomes  more  mock'd,  than  fear'd;  so  our  decrees, 
Bead  to  infiictiwi,  to  themselves  are  dead; 

l  Works  (Boston),  K.  328. 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  569 

And  liberty  plucks  justice  by  the  nose, 
The  baby  beats  the  nurse,  and  quite  athwart 
Goes  all  decorum."    ....  —  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

"  The  law  hath  not  been  dead,  though  it  hath  slept." 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

The  treatise  of  Universal  Justice  begins  by  saying  that 
it  rather  belongs  to  statesmen  to  write  concerning  laws  than 
to  philosophers,  who  lay  down  "  precepts  fair  in  argument, 
but  not  applicable  to  use,"  or  to  lawyers,  who  "talk  in 
bonds  "  ;  but  u  statesmen  best  understand  the  condition  of 
civil  society,  welfare  of  the  people,  natural  equity,  custom 
of  nations,  and  different  forms  of  government"  He  rec- 
ommends Pretorian  Courts,  which  shall  have  power  "by 
the  judgment  and  discretion  of  a  conscientious  man,  .... 
to  abate  the  rigour  of  the  law  and  to  supply  defects,"  but 
not  to  be  allowed  "  to  swell  and  overflow,  so  as  under 
colour  of  mitigating  the  rigour  of  the  law  to  break  its 
strength  and  relax  its  sinews,  by  drawing  everything  to  be 
a  matter  of  discretion."  He  observes  that  "  there  are  no 
worse  snares  than  legal  snares,  especially  in  penal  laws,  if, 
being  infinite  in  number,  and  useless  through  the  lapse 
of  time,  instead  of  being  as  a  lantern  to  the  feet  they  are 
as  nets  to  the  path."  And  thus  continues  the  play  on  this 
same  subject  of  the  conscientious  man  and  the  rigor  of  the 
laws :  — 

"  Fri.  It  rested  in  your  Grace 

To  unloose  this  tied-up  justice  when  you  pleas' d, 

And  it  in  you  more  dreadful  would  have  seem'd 

Than  in  Lord  Angelo. 
Duke.  I  do  fear,  too  dreadful : 

Sith  't  was  my  fault  to  give  the  people  scope, 

'T  would  be  my  tyranny  to  strike  and  gall  them 

For  what  I  bid  them  do:  for  we  bid  this  be  done, 

When  evil  deeds  have  their  permissive  pass, 

And  not  the  punishment.    Therefore,  indeed,  my  Father, 

I  have  on  Angelo  impos'd  the  office, 

Who  may,  in  th'  ambush  of  my  name,  strike  home, 

And  yet  my  nature  never  in  the  fight, 

To  do  in  slander. 

Lord  Angelo  is  precise; 


570  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

Stands  at  a  guard  with  envy ;  scarce  confesses 

That  his  blood  flows,  or  that  his  appetite 

Is  more  to  bread  than  stone :  hence  shall  we  see, 

If  power  change  purpose,  what  our  seemers  be."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

And  again,  thus  :  — 

"  Lucio.  This  is  the  point. 

The  Duke  is  very  strangely  gone  from  hence ; 
—  Bore  many  gentlemen,  myself  being  one, 
In  hand,  and  hope  of  action ;  but  we  do  learn 
By  those  that  know  the  very  nerves  of  State, 
His  givings-out  were  of  an  infinite  distance 
From  his  true-meant  design.    Upon  his  place 
And  with  full  line  of  his  authority, 
Governs  Lord  Angelo ;  a  man  whose  blood 
Is  very  snow-broth ;  one  who  never  feels 
The  wanton  stings  and  motions  of  the  sense, 
But  doth  rebate  and  blunt  his  natural  edge 
With  profits  of  the  mind,  study,  and  fast. 
He  (to  give  fear  to  use  and  liberty, 
Which  have,  for  long,  run  by  the  hideous  law, 
As  mice  by  lions)  hath  pick'd  out  an  Act, 
Under  whose  heavy  sense  your  brother's  life 
Falls  into  forfeit :  he  arrests  him  on  it, 
And  follows  close  the  rigour  of  the  statute, 
To  make  him  an  example."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

The  55th  Aphorism  alludes  to  the  Athenian  custom  of 
appointing  "  commissioners "  to  revise  obsolete  and  con- 
tradictory laws  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  special  notice  that  the 
play  opens  with  the  delivery  of  a  like  commission  to  this 
same  Athenian  statesman,  who  is  to  determine  "  by  the 
judgment  and  discretion  of  a  conscientious  man,"  in  these 
words : — 

"  Duke.    Of  government  the  properties  to  unfold, 
Would  seem  in  me  t'  affect  speech  and  discourse ; 
Since  I  am  put  to  know,  that  your  own  science 
Exceeds,  in  that,  the  lists  of  all  advice 
My  strength  can  give  you;  then  no  more  remains 
But  that,  to  your  sufficienc}',  —  as  your  worth  is  able,  — 
And  let  them  work.     The  nature  of  our  people, 
Our  city's  institutions,  and  the  terms 
For  common  justice,  y'  are  as  pregnant  in 
As  art  and  practice  hath  enriched  any 
That  we  remember.    There  is  our  commission, 
From  which  we  would  not  have  you  warp."  —  Act  1.  Sc.  1. 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  571 

In  this  same  Book,  the  author  dwells  on  "  character  and 
reputation  "  as  one  of  the  necessary  means,  together  with 
the  amendment  of  the  mind,  of  raising  and  advancing  a 
man's  own  fortune  in  life,  and  begins  the  treatise  with  these 
words :  "  Wherefore  let  it  be  my  present  object  to  go  to  the 
fountains  of  justice  and  public  expediency,  and  endeavour 
with  reference  to  the  several  provinces  of  law  to  exhibit  a 
character  and  idea  of  justice  ["  character  quidam  et  Idea 
Jasti  "]  in  general  comparison  with  which  the  laws  of  par- 
ticular states  and  kingdoms  may  be  tested  and  amended." 
Again,  the  play  proceeds  thus :  — 

"Duke.  Angelo, 

There  is  a  kind  of  character  in  thy  life, 
That,  to  th'  observer,  doth  thy  history 
Fully  unfold.    Thyself  and  thy  belongings 
Are  not  thine  own  so  proper,  as  to  waste 
Thyself  upon  thy  virtues,  they  on  thee. 
Heaven  doth  with  us  as  we  with  torches  do ; 
Not  light  them  for  ourselves ;  for  if  our  virtues 
Did  not  go  forth  of  us,  H  were  all  alike 
As  if  we  had  them  not.    Spirits  are  not  finely  touch'd, 
But  to  fine  issues;  nor  Nature  never  lends 
The  smallest  scruple  of  her  excellence, 
But,  like  a  thrifty  goddess,  she  determines 
Herself  the  glory  of  a  creditor  — 
Both  thanks  and  use.    But  I  do  bend  my  speech 
To  one  that  can  my  part  in  him  advertise : 
Hold,  therefore,  Angelo,  [our  place  and  power:] 
In  our  remove,  be  thou  at  full  ourself : 
Mortality  and  mercy  in  Vienna 
Live  in  thy  tongue  and  heart.    Old  Escalus, 
Though  first  in  question,  is  thy  secondary: 
Take  thy  commission.''  . 

So  fare  you  well : 

To  th'  hopeful  execution  do  I  leave  you 
Of  your  commissions."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Here,  we  are  again  reminded  of  that  saying  of  Bacon,  that 
"good  thoughts  (though  God  accept  them,)  yet  towards 
men  are  little  better  than  good  dreams,  except  they  be  put 
in  act ;  and  that  cannot  be  toithout  poirer  and  place,  as  the 
vantage  and  commanding  ground." ■     And  in  this  passage, 

1  Essay  of  Great  Place. 


572  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

Mr.  White's  restoration  of  the  words  "  our  place  and  power" 
in  brackets,  may  find  additional  warrant,  as  well  as  in  the 
following  line  (which  he  notices),  from  the  next  scene  but 
one:  — 

"  My  absolute  power  and  place  here  in  Vienna; " 

except  that  he  has  transposed  the  order  of  the  words,  while, 
doubtless,  the  author  himself  used  them  in  the  same  order, 
in  all  three  instances ;  *  and  there  can  be  scarcely  any 
doubt  that  the  line  originally  stood  thus  :  — 

"  Hold,  therefore,  Angelo,  our  power  and  place." 
In  like  manner,  he  proceeds  to  discuss  the  Evil  Arts  as 
well  as  the  Good  Arts,  and  enumerates  "  the  depraved  and 
pernicious  doctrines "  and  principles  of  Machiavelli,  of 
which  one  was,  '•  That  virtue  itself  a  man  should  not  trouble 
himself  to  obtain,  but  only  the  appearance  thereof  to  the  world, 
because  the  credit  and  reputation  of  virtue  is  a  help,  but  the 
use  of  it  is  an  impediment."  He  vigorously  combats  "  such 
kind  of  corrupt  wisdom  "  and  "  such  dispensations  from  all 
the  laws  of  charity  and  virtue,"  and  lays  it  down,  that  "  men 
ought  to  be  so  far  removed  from  devoting  themselves  to 
wicked  arts  of  this  nature,  that  rather  (if  they  are  only 
in  their  own  power,  and  can  bear  and  sustain  themselves 
without  being  carried  away  by  a  whirlwind  or  tempest  of 
ambition)  they  ought  to  set  before  their  eyes  not  only  that 
general  map  of  the  world,  "  that  all  things  are  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit,"  but  also  that  more  particular  chart, 
namely,  "  that  being  without  well-being  is  a  curse,  and  the 
greater  being  the  greater  curse"  and  that  " all  virtue  is  most 
rewarded,  and  all  wickedness  most  punished  in  itself;  "  as  the 
poet  excellently  says  :  — 

"  Quae  vobis,  qua?  digna,  viri,  pro  laudibus  istis 
Prsemia  posse  rear  solvi  ?  pulcherrima  primum 
Dii  moresque  dabunt  vestri." 

And  so,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  no  less  truly  said  of  the 
wicked,  "  His  own  manners  will  be  his  punishment."  3 

i  White's  Shakes.,111.,  p.  14:  Note,  p.  112. 

2  Trans,  of  the  De  Aug.,  Wcn-ks  (Boston),  IX.  295. 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  573 

An  attentive  study  of  these  passages  can  scarcely  fail  to 
penetrate  the  subtle  identity  of  thought  and  doctrine  that 
pervades  them  both,  and  it  will  be  observed  that  the  close 
of  the  Duke's  speech  runs  upon  the  same  idea  of  justice 
and  mercy,  which  has  been  already  quoted  from  the  "  An- 
titheses," the  word  mortality  being  used  for  the  verse,  in- 
stead of  justice  ;  that  is,  the  power  of  life  and  death  in  civil 
justice. 

"  And  thus,"  he  tells  us,  in  the  conclusion  of  this  Book, 
"  have  I  intended  to  employ  myself  in  tuning  the  harp  of 
the  muses  and  reducing  it  to  perfect  harmony,  that  here- 
after the  strings  may  be  touched  by  a  better  hand  or  a 
better  quill."  He  then  felicitates  himself  upon  the  con- 
dition of  learning  in  his  time,  alludes  to  the  excellence  and 
perfection  of  his  Majesty's  learning,  which  called  "whole 
flocks  of  wits "  around  him,  "  as  birds  around  a  phoenix," 
and,  lastly,  points  out  the  inseparable  property  of  time, 
ever  more  and  more  to  disclose  Truth :  "  — 

"  for  truth  is  truth 
To  the  end  of  reckoning."  —  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

If  there  be  any  one  thing  for  which  these  plays  as  a 
whole  are  preeminently  remarkable,  it  is  a  profound  recog- 
nition everywhere  of  an  immanent  world-streaming  Di- 
vine Providence.  In  this  fine  play,  in  particular,  it  may 
be  seen  in  the  Duke  being  made  a  partaker  of  God's 
theatre  and  of  "  power  divine,"  and  in  the  "  gentle  Isabella," 
the  nun,  of  whom  Lucio  is  made  to  say :  — 

"  I  hold  you  as  a  thing  ensky'd,  and  sainted ; 
By  your  renouncement  an  immortal  spirit; 
And  to  be  talk'd  with  in  sincerity, 
As  with  a  saint."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

And  there  is  perhaps  nothing  loftier,  or  more  impressive, 
in  any  teaching,  sacred  or  profane,  than  her  final  appeal  to 
Lord  Angelo :  — 

"hab.  Alas,  alas! 

Why  all  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once ; 


674  REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE. 

And  He  that  might  the  vantage  best  have  took, 
Found  out  the  remedy :  How  would  you  be, 
If  He,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment,  should 
But  judge  you  as  you  are  ?    O,  think  on  that ; 
And  mercy  then  will  breathe  within  your  lips, 
Like  man  new  made."  —  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

And  not  less  pious,  noble,  and  true,  whether  as  applied  to 
the  De  Augmentis  alone,  or  to  these  dramas  also,  both  in- 
clusive, as  twin  products  of  the  labors  of  a  life,  written 
chiefly  in  the  earlier  part  of  it,  but  enlarged,  amended, 
elaborated,  and  finished  in  his  later  years,  and  finally  given 
to  the  world  together  in  the  same  year  1623,  not  openly  as 
twins,  but  as  utter  strangers  to  each  other,  the  one  heralded 
to  mankind  under  favor  of  a  princely  dedication  and  high- 
sounding  titles,  the  other  carefully  hidden,  though  secretly 
open,  under  a  mask  of  Momus,  and  set  to  parade  the 
universal  theatre  on  its  own  merits  in  the  name  of  a  "  noted 
weed,"  is  the  conclusion  of  this  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing, an  almost  equally  superb  monument  of  his  piety,  his 
learning,  his  genius,  and  his  intellect,  in  these  words : 
"  And  certainly  it  may  be  objected  to  me  with  truth,  that 
my  words  require  an  age  ;  a  whole  age  perhaps  to  prove 
them,  and  many  ages  to  perfect  them.  But  yet  as  even  the 
greatest  things  are  owing  to  their  beginnings,  it  will  be 
enough  for  me  to  have  sown  a  seed  for  posterity  and  the 
Immortal  God ;  whose  Majesty  I  humbly  implore  through 
his  Son  our  Saviour  that  He  will  vouchsafe  favorably  to 
accept  these  and  the  like  offerings  of  the  human  intellect, 
seasoned  with  religion  as  with  salt,  and  sacrificed  to  His 
Glory." 

Finally,  this  order  of  degree,  justice,  and  authentic  place 
of  things,  from  the  glorious  planet  Sol,  enthroned  like  the 
commandment  of  a  king,  down  through  states,  communities, 
and  brotherhoods  in  cities,  sounds  very  much  like  this  pas- 
sage from  a  Speech  of  Lord  Bacon :  "  We  see  the  degrees 
and  differences  of  duties  in  families,  between  father  and 
son,  master  and  servant ;    in   corporate   bodies,  between 


REVERENCE  AND  DEGREE.  575 

commonalties  and  their  officers,  recorders,  stewards,  and 
the  like  ;  yet  all  these  give  place  to  the  king's  command- 
ments." The  planets,  too,  were  a  favorite  source  of  meta- 
phor with  him,  as  thus  in  the  "  Pericles  " :  — 

"  The  senate-house  of  planets  all  did  sit, 
To  knit  in  her  their  best  perfections."  —  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

And  thus  it  appears  in  another  speech  of  Bacon :  "  You 
that  are  the  judges  of  circuits  are,  as  it  were,  the  planets 
of  the  kingdom,"  and  again,  "  it  will  indeed  dignify  and 
exalt  knowledge,  if  contemplation  and  action  may  be  more 
nearly  and  strongly  united  together  than  they  have  been  ;  a 
conjunction  like  unto  that  of  the  two  highest  planets,  Saturn, 
the  planet  of  rest  and  contemplation,  and  Jupiter,  the  planet 
of  civil  society  and  action."  And  here,  again,  we  may 
remember  "the  magnificent  palace,  city,  and  hill "  of  the 
wise  and  good  man  of  the  New  Atlantis,  who  wore  "an 
aspect  as  if  he  pitied  men,"  and  "  the  several  degrees 
of  ascent  whereby  men  did  climb  up  the  same,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  Scala  Coeli."  This  is  "  the  ladder  to  all  high  de- 
signs " —  Heaven's  Ladder !  And  doubtless  for  this  reason, 
the  intended  Fourth  Part  of  the  Great  Instauration  was  to 
be  called  "  Scala  Intellectus :  The  Scaling  Ladder  of  the  In- 
tellect, or  Thread  of  the  Labyrinth."  Holinshed  speaks  of 
"  the  palpable  blindness  of  that  age  wherein  King  John 
lived,  as  also  the  religion  which  they  reposed  in  a  rotten 
ray,  esteeming  it  as  a  Scala  Coeli,  or  ladder  to  life."  *  Pos- 
sibly, this  passage  may  have  been  seen  by  "William  Shake- 
speare ;  but  here,  also,  we  have  distinct  and  indubitable 
proof  of  the  fact,  that  it  had  become  imprinted  in  the 
memory  of  Francis  Bacon. 

l  Chron.  of  Eng.,  II.  338. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

"  I  have,  though  in  a  despised  weed,  procured  the  good  of  all  men."  —  Bacon. 
§    1.   REFORMATION   OP   ABUSES. 

How  such  a  man  could  fall  into  the  actual  guilt  of  bribery 
to  pervert  justice,  would  be  difficult  to  conceive,  if  that 
were  really  true  in  the  full  sense  in  which  we  understand 
the  judicial  offence  of  bribery  and  corruption  ;  for  this 
would  necessarily  imply,  not  only  a  direct  contradiction  to 
the  tenor  and  spirit  of  all  his  writings,  but  such  absolute 
want  of  moral  principle  and  such  Machiavellian  baseness 
and  utter  worthlessness  of  character  as  would  be  wholly 
irreconcilable,  as  he  himself  said,  when  speaking  of  the 
Machiavellian  Bad  Arts,  with  any  just  notion  of  virtue, 
nobleness,  or  honor.  A  candid  view  of  all  the  facts  and 
circumstances,  of  which  it  is  not  improbable  that  we  now 
know  more,  and  can  judge  better,  than  the  partial  his- 
torians and  personal  enemies  who  have  written  against  him, 
will  certainly  not  justify  this  sweeping  conclusion.  "We 
must  take  into  view  the  state  and  condition  of  things  in 
that  age  and  the  actual  nature  of  the  case  ;  —  the  character 
of  the  government  as  practically  an  absolute  despotism,  in 
which  the  most  capricious  favoritism  was  supreme  arbiter 
of  individual  fortunes  about  the  court ;  money  a  necessary, 
or  the  best,  passport  to  place  and  power ;  abject  subser- 
viency a  common  condition  of  favor  with  the  monarch  and 
his  greater  favorites  ;  and  the  most  vile  and  corrupt  prac- 
tices a  general  thing  among  the  principal  courtiers,  and 


REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES.  577 

the  custom  notorious  among  nearly  all  the  higher  officers 
of  state,  judicial  and  other,  the  chancellor  included,  of 
receiving,  not  bribes  as  they  understood  them,  but  unlimited 
fees,  customary  gifts,  gracious  presents,  and  bountiful  lar- 
gesses, as  well  as  the  "  ancient  and  known  perquisites  "  of 
office.  Many  grew  rich  and  great  by  sheer  knavery,  cor- 
rupt intrigue,  and  merciless  plunder ;  and  no  man  was 
quite  safe  in  the  possession  of  a  lucrative  and  splendid 
office.  All  this  is  clearly  exhibited  in  the  history  of  such 
miscreants  as  Churchill,  Cranfield,  Williams,  and  the  Vil- 
lierses,  not  altogether  omitting  Buckingham  himself.  The 
Lord  Chancellor  was  not  merely  a  judge,  but  a  high  State 
functionary,  next  to  royalty  itself,  and  keeper  of  the  King's 
conscience,  which  would  not  always  be  kept,  in  an  age  of 
princely  magnificence,  absolute  prerogative,  and  unlimited 
power,  and  in  a  bottomless  whirlpool  of  avarice,  intrigue 
and  ambition.  Political  rivalries,  common  enough  in  any 
age,  were  hugely  grim  and  fierce  in  this  reign,  as  witness 
the  life-long  struggle  of  Coke  and  Bacon  for  the  ascendency 
in  the  State  and  over  each  other.  Coke  gained  honor  in 
being  deposed  from  the  King's  Bench,  and  his  defence  of 
Magna  Charta  and  his  great  merits  in  the  law  have  made 
his  name  illustrious  with  posterity.  Bacon,  greatly  his 
superior  in  knowledge,  learning,  genius,  science  and  arts, 
if  not  his  equal  in  law,  and  with  a  reputation  and  character 
far  more  illustrious  than  his,  in  his  own  time,  is  suddenly 
tumbled  from  the  woolsack  into  eternal  disgrace,  and  comes 
down  to  posterity  a  very  by-word  of  infamy  and  meanness. 
But  looking  to  the  whole  life  and  conduct  of  these  men, 
and  comparing  the  nobleness,  disinterestedness,  and  purity 
of  Bacon's  life  with  the  coarse  ferocity,  the  inappeasable 
malignity,  and  the  really  unutterable  meanness  of  Coke  in 
many  things,  old  Escalus  might  inquire,  "  Which  is  the 
wiser  here  ?  Justice,  or  Iniquity  ? "  Not  that  all  these 
things  together  can  extenuate  a  crime,  or  a  guilt  confessed, 
nor  that  badness  in  others  can  be  any  excuse  for  baseness 
37 


578  REFORMATION   OF  ABUSES. 

in  him ;  but  that  considerations  like  these  may  help  to 
explain  the  fact  of  Bacon's  fall  from  power,  without  the 
necessity  of  imputing  to  him  the  moral  guilt  of  actual 
bribery  and  corruption,  or  any  degree  of  meanness  ;  much 
less  a  total  want  of  moral  sense,  and  an  habitual  baseness 
of  character,  as  some  of  his  biographers  have  ignorantly 
done. 

Only  some  three  years  before  the  attack  on  Bacon,  we 
find  Buckingham  and  Coke  fomenting  charges  of  the  like 
nature,  and  with  the  same  corrupt  and  wicked  purpose  of 
creating  a  vacancy  to  be  filled  by  some  new  minion,  and 
putting  up  the  same  pretence  of  corruption  in  taking  bribes, 
of  money,  a  ring,  a  cabinet,  a  piece  of  plate,  and  the  like, 
against  the  Lord  Chancellor  Egerton  (Ellesmere),  nearly 
breaking  the  old  man's  heart ;  and  it  might  have  been  as 
successful  with  him  as  it  was  with  Bacon,  afterwards,  had 
not  the  King  himself  come  to  his  relief,  and  defeated  the 
scheme  by  giving  an  earldom  to  Egerton  and  the  Seals  to 
Bacon.  The  real  truth  of  the  matter  was,  that  the  age 
began  to  discover  that  an  ancient  custom  needed  to  be 
reformed,  because  it  began  to  be  felt  as  a  grievance  and 
an  abuse.  Old  blackletter  laws,  fallen  obsolete,  practically 
superseded  by  custom  almost  equally  ancient,  and  now 
lying  more  dead  than  asleep,  were  suddenly  revived  and 
put  in  force,  and  all  at  once  what  had  been  a  lantern  to  the 
feet  became  a  net  in  the  path. 

In  like  manner,  long  afterwards,  in  the  reign  of  George 
I.,  the  Lord  Chancellor  Macclesfield  was  arraigned  before 
the  House  of  Lords  for  "  the  sale  of  offices  "  in  chancery. 
He  had  followed  the  custom  and  practice  of  his  predeces- 
sors in  office,  time  out  of  mind,  and  received  presents  from 
newly  appointed  officers  as  "  the  ancient  and  known  per- 
quisites of  the  Great  Seal."  Being  a  little  avaricious, 
perhaps,  he  had  carried  the  thing  to  a  pretty  high  figure. 
The  Masters  had  fallen  into  the  practice  of  paying  the  pres- 
ents out  of  the  funds  of  the  suitors  in  their  hands  and  then 


REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES.  579 

speculating  in  stocks  to  make  them  good  again.  Suddenly, 
the  great  South  Sea  Bubble  burst,  and  there  was  a  great 
loss.  Masters  and  suitors  were  ruined  ;  and  a  loud  cry  for 
reform  became  the  rage  of  the  day.  The  brunt  of  the 
storm  fell  on  the  head  of  the  Lord  Chancellor.  Against 
the  custom  were  paraded  certain  old  obsolete  Statutes  of 
Richard  II.  and  Edward  VI.,  in  unreadable  law  French, 
"  several  hundred  years "  forgotten,  within  the  letter  of 
which  his  case  happened  to  fall,  and  did  not  happen  to  fall 
within  the  exception,  as  that  of  the  Judges  of  the  Law 
Courts  did ;  and  so  Macclesfield  was  condemned  to  ever- 
lasting infamy  for  doing  about  the  same  thing  that  the 
Judges  were  doing,  and  had  a  right  to  do,  without  any 
thought  of  wrong.  But  it  was  all  wrong,  undoubtedly  : 
offices  never  ought  to  have  been  sold  at  all,  nor  presents 
taken.  On  the  trial,  a  witness  was  asked,  if  the  Lord 
Chancellor  Cowper,  and  Harcourt,  had  not  done  the  same 
thing,  in  their  times.  "  O  yes,"  answered  the  witness. 
But,  breaks  in  Lord  Harcourt  from  his  seat  on  the 
benches,  "  Did  I  ever  haggle  for  more  ?  "  and  "  Didn't  they 
pay  me  out  of  their  own  money  ?  " 1  In  modern  times,  a 
rational  remedy  for  such  evils  would  be  found  in  a  new 
Statute,  giving  an  ample  fixed  salary,  with  utter  prohibition 
of  all  fees,  perquisites,  and  presents,  any  custom  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding ;  but  in  these  more  ancient  days,  it  was 
by  summary  outbreak  —  Off  with  the  Chancellor's  head  ! 
hurl  his  name  and  reputation  into  the  bottomless  pit !  — 
and  let  the  bursting  of  South  Sea  bubbles  forever  cease  ! 

In  the  reign  of  James  I.,  the  Lord  Chancellor  had  no 
fixed  salary,  or  a  merely  nominal  one,  and  yet  his  income 
was  expected  to  be  some  £15,000  a  year:  it  came  from 
ancient  perquisites  and  customary  fees,  not  regulated  by 
other  law  than  the  custom.  But  to  such  a  pitch  had  grown 
all  manner  of  abuses,  in  this  reign,  in  monopolies,  patents, 
prerogative  exactions,  fees,  presents,  and  largesses,  reaching 
i  16  Howell's  State  Trials,  1151. 


580  REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES. 

all  the  Courts  of  Justice  and  nearly  all  the  offices  of  State, 
that  every  Parliament  opened  with  a  thundering  demand 
for  reform  and  a  redress  of  grievances,  and  was  immediately 
prorogued  and  sent  home  because  it  did  so,  until  at  last 
reform  had  to  come.  Buckingham,  the  prime  favorite, 
whose  frown  was  fatal  to  all  lesser  dependants,  did  not 
scruple  to  write  letters  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  urging  upon 
him  a  favorable  consideration  of  particular  suitors  in  his 
court.  Here  was  indeed  danger  that  justice  might  be  per- 
verted, if  the  judge  were  really  dishonest.  There  is  no 
charge  that  Bacon  was  ever  swerved  under  this  pressure  ; 
and  it  is  certain  that  he  counselled  in  eloquent  terms  against 
a  practice  which  he  had  no  power  to  correct.  And  is  it 
any  matter  of  wonder  that,  yielding  to  the  necessities  of 
his  actual  condition,  and  unconscious  of  any  dereliction 
of  duty,  or  any  falling  from  virtue  and  honor,  he  should 
adopt  and  continue  the  customs  and  usages  of  former 
Chancellors,  or  even  slide  into  the  common  practices  and 
abuses  of  the  Court  and  time  and  throng  in  which  he  had 
to  live  and  move  ?  Birth-day  presents,  New  Year's  gifts, 
splendid  offerings  on  various  occasions,  largesses  of  money, 
and  magnificent  favors,  were  common,  and  Bacon  seems 
to  have  participated  in  these  things  in  some  small  degree 
with  the  rest.  Transition  from  the  State  functionary  to  the 
judge  in  the  same  person,  or  from  the  courtier  to  the 
suitor,  was  but  a  short  distance  to  travel,  and  the  distinc- 
tion between  a  fee,  a  present,  and  a  bribe  was  not  well 
marked  by  any  law,  and  more  easily  lost  sight  of  than  in 
our  day.  Practically,  hardly  any  distinction  existed,  then. 
According  to  the  researches  of  Mr.  Dixon,  the  compensa- 
tion of  all  the  great  officers  of  State,  including  the  Chancel- 
lor, Judges,  and  Bishops,  from  the  King  down  to  the  King's 
Sergeant,  was  derived  from  these  indefinite  fees,  gifts,  and 
perquisites,  there  being  no  such  thing  as  a  civil  list,  and 
such  fixed  salaries  as  there  were  being  merely  nominal.1 
i  Ptrg.  Hist,  of  Lord  Bacon,  290. 


REFORMATION   OF    ABUSES.  581 

Most  of  the  charges  against  Bacon  were  founded  upon 
gifts  accepted  as  usual  after  the  cases  had  been  determined, 
as  a  compensation  justly  due  in  the  absence  of  fees  fixed 
by  law,  of  which  there  were  none.  Some  were  received  by 
his  servants,  or  under-officers,  without  his  personal  knowl- 
edge, before  the  cases  had  been  decided  ;  and  in  some  of 
these  instances,  the  money  was  ordered  to  be  returned  as 
improper,  when  reported  to  him.  In  other  cases,  he  was 
not  actually  aware  that  the  donors  had  causes  pending  in 
his  court.  In  nearly  all  cases,  the  gifts  were  presented 
through  eminent  counsel  and  persons  of  high  standing,  and 
in  most  cases,  openly,  and  with  the  knowledge  of  all  con- 
cerned ;  and  as  Coke  himself  admitted,  as  it  were,  in  the 
presence  of  witnesses.  In  general,  they  were  received  by 
his  clerks  and  the  officers  whose  business  it  was  to  collect 
and  receive  the  fees  and  emoluments  of  his  office.  The 
grievance  of  the  chief  complainants  was,  that  their  cases  had 
been  decided  against  them,  notwithstanding  the  gifts  ;  nor 
does  it  appear  that  his  judgments  were  at  all  affected  by 
these  alleged  bribes.  None  of  the  cases  were  reversed  on 
appeal ;  but  appeals  were  not  common  in  those  days,  says 
Lord  Campbell.  After  a  thorough  scrutiny  into  the  whole 
matter,  Mr.  Dixon  comes  to  the  conclusion,  that  there  is 
no  fair  and  just  ground  for  supposing  that  Bacon  "  had 
done  wrong,  knowing  it  to  be  wrong,"  in  a  single  instance  ; 
that  "  not  a  single  fee  or  remembrance  traced  to  the  Chan- 
cellor can,  by  any  fair  construction,  be  called  a  bribe.  Not 
one  appears  to  have  been  given  upon  a  promise  ;  not  one 
appears  to  have  been  given  in  secret ;  not  one  is  alleged  to 
have  corrupted  justice."  This  conclusion  would  almost 
bring  the  case  within  the  precedent  of  the  play,  in  which 
Bassanio  offers  the  judge,  after  judgment  pronounced,  the 
"  three  thousand  ducats  due  unto  the  Jew  "  for  his  "  courte- 
ous pains  withal  "  :  — 

"  Ant.    And  stand  indebted,  over  and  above, 
In  love  and  service  to  you  evermore. 


582  REFORMATION   OF   ABUSES. 

Por.    He  is  well  paid  that  is  well  satisfied : 
And  I,  delivering  you,  am  satisfied, 
And  therein  do  account  myself  well  paid. 
My  mind  was  never  yet  more  mercenary. 

Bass.    Dear  sir,  of  force  I  must  attempt  you  farther : 
Take  some  remembrance  of  us  as  a  tribute, 
Not  as  a  fee 

Por.  You  press  me  far,  and  therefore  I  will  yield. 
Give  me  your  gloves ;  I  '11  wear  them  for  your  sake ; 
And,  for  your  love,  I  '11  take  this  ring  from  you." 

Mer.  of  Ven.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

All  this  may  be  true  ;  and  yet  it  would  seem  to  be  clear 
from  the  recorded  facts  and  his  own  admissions,  that  the 
gifts  were  too  large,  in  some  instances,  to  come  under  the 
head  of  ordinary  fees,  and  the  circumstances  such  as  to 
make  him,  at  least,  a  partaker  in  the  abuses  of  the  time. 
Indeed,  the  actual  facts  as  formally  confessed  by  himself 
would,  undoubtedly,  by  strict  legal  construction,  bring  the 
case,  in  some  instances,  within  the  judicial  offence  of 
bribery  as  technically  defined  by  law,  where  the  intent 
would  have  to  be  inferred  from  the  facts.  Said  Lord  Mac- 
clesfield, "  If  you  are  to  judge  me  by  the  strict  rigor  of  the 
statute,  all  my  fees  were  bribes  ;  for  the  fees  were  no  more 
lawful  than  the  presents."  And  yet  it  would  be  absurd  to 
charge  the  judge  with  the  moral  guilt  of  base  corruption,  in 
such  case  and  under  such  circumstances.  Considering  the 
imperial  nature  of  Bacon's  mind,  habitually  soaring  aloft 
amidst  the  highest  contemplations,  and  intending,  as  he  said, 
to  move  "  in  the  true  straight  line  of  nobleness,"  and  more 
or  less  constantly  preoccupied,  as  he  was,  with  other  mat- 
ters than  the  business  of  the  court  and  the  watching  of 
servants,  clerks,  and  chancery  suitors,  and  blinded  in  some 
degree,  perhaps,  by  the  splendor  of  state  which  attended 
him,  and  never  particularly  attentive  to  money  affairs,  and 
always  rather  munificent  than  avaricious  or  griping,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  he  might  insensibly  fall  into  a  somewhat 
negligent   and   inconsiderate   indulgence  in   the   common 


REFORMATION   OF    ABUSES.  583 

practices  and  abuses,  especially  with  the  example  of  illus- 
trious predecessors  before  him  to  justify  them,  even  to  the 
extent  of  all  the  facts  necessary  to  make  out  a  case  of  brib- 
ery, in  strict  legal  construction,  without  his  conscience  being 
aroused,  though  sensible  to  all  honor  and  virtue,  to  any 
sense  of  wrong,  much  less  to  a  consciousness  of  corrupt 
guilt  in  the  perversion  of  justice  at  the  fountain  head,  as  it 
must  be  admitted,  would,  and  should,  be  the  case  with  any 
honest  judge  in  our  time,  under  any  similar  circumstances 
which  could  now  take  place.  But  no  such  case  could  now 
arise.  Though  it  be  difficult  to  make  such  "  gross  sins 
look  clear,"  or  wholly  to  justify  or  excuse  them,  on  the 
highest  moral  grounds,  when  the  whole  matter  is  duly  con- 
sidered, it  is  perhaps  still  possible  to  believe  that  no  cor- 
rupt intent,  or  thought,  ever  entered  into  his  mind  in  these 
matters,  and  that  what  he  said  for  himself  may  have  been 
really  true  :  —  "  And  for  the  briberies  and  gifts  wherewith 
I  am  charged,  when  the  book  of  hearts  shall  be  opened,  I 
hope  I  shall  not  be  found  to  have  the  troubled  fountain  of 
a  corrupt  heart  in  a  depraved  habit  of  taking  rewards  to 
pervert  justice  ;  howsoever  I  may  be  frail  and  partake  of 
the  abuses  of  the  times." 

In  a  draft  of  a  paper  to  be  delivered  to  the  King,  before 
the  formal  proceedings  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  in 
which  he  appears  carefully  to  have  considered  the  real 
state  of  the  case,  he  distinguished  cases  of  gifts  received 
into  three  degrees :  1.  Of  bargain  or  contract  for  reward 
to  pervert  justice ;  2.  Where  the  judge  conceives  the  law 
to  be  at  an  end,  by  the  information  of  the  party,  or  other- 
wise, and  useth  not  such  diligence  as  he  ought,  to  inquire 
into  it ;  3.  When  the  cause  is  really  ended,  and  the  gift  is 
sine  frauds  without  relation  to  any  precedent  promise. 
Of  the  first,  he  declared  his  entire  innocence  ;  of  the 
second,  he  doubted  in  some  instances  he  might  have  been 
faulty ;  and  of  the  third,  he  considered  it  to  be  no  fault ; 
but  in  this  respect  he  desired  to  be  better  informed,  that 


584  REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES. 

he  might  be  twice  penitent,  once  for  the  fact,  and  again  for 
the  error.  After  a  critical  examination  of  the  particulars 
of  the  charge,  which  were  admitted  to  be  true  in  fact,  and 
constituted  the  whole  foundation  of  the  confession  that  he 
was  therein  technically  "  guilty  of  corruption,"  Mr.  Dixon 
fairly  and  justly  concludes,  that  most  of  the  cases  fall 
under  Bacon's  third  division ;  one  or  two  under  the  second ; 
but  not  one  under  the  first.1 

In  our  day,  when  judges  receive  compensation  by  ade- 
quate fixed  salaries,  no  such  thing  as  the  receiving  of 
presents  of  money,  or  other  things  of  value,  before  or  after 
judgment,  with  or  without  the  party  having  a  cause  then 
pending  in  his  court,  would  be  countenanced  at  all :  it 
would  justly  be  taken  as  evidence  of  a  fraudulent  and  cor- 
rupt character.  But  it  was  quite  a  different  thing  in  that 
age,  when  there  was  not  only  no  salary,  but  no  fees  that 
were  definitely  fixed  by  law,  and  the  revenues  of  the  office 
were  notoriously  understood  to  be  derived  from  the  custom- 
ary, ancient,  and  known  perquisites,  presents  included.  In 
this  indefinite  state  of  the  thing,  there  was  necessarily  large 
room  and  a  pretty  wide  range  for  the  exercise  of  discretion. 
In  the  upshot,  the  truth  would  seem  to  be,  that  ancient 
practice,  at  first  strictly  against  law,  had  so  grown  into  use, 
in  the  course  of  time,  that  it  might  well  be  matter  of  doubt 
whether  the  custom,  or  the  ancient  statute,  was  to  have  the 
force  of  law.  In  this  way,  small  fees  had  grown  into  large 
fees  ;  perquisites  into  presents,  and  presents  into  bountiful 
largesses ;  until  the  practice  finally  came  to  be  felt  as  an 
enormous  abuse.  The  Commons  had  determined,  long 
before,  to  have  a  reform  of  these  abuses,  and  a  redress  of 
grievances  generally.  Complaint  being  made  of  the  Lord- 
Chancellor,  they  struck  at  him  first.  Bacon,  finding  him- 
self suddenly  confronted  with  this  movement  and  the  strict 
law  of  the  subject,  probably  saw  at  once  that  he  must  be 
made  a  victim  to  the  rigor  of  the  statute,  and  that  the  facts 

1  Story  of  Lord  Bacon's  Life,  443. 


REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES.  585 

taken  literally  and  by  strict  legal  construction  would  bring 
him  within  the  technical  definition  of  bribery  and  corrup- 
tion ;  though  he  had  never  imagined  that  he  could  be 
charged  with  anything  criminal  or  corrupt  in  what  he  was 
doing.  And  so,  the  literal  facts  he  freely  admitted  and 
confessed  as  they  were :  — 

"  Nor  did  he  soil  the  fact  with  cowardice, 
(An  honour  in  him  which  buys  out  his  fault)  "  ; 

while  at  the  same  time  solemnly  protesting  that  he  had 
never  had  "  the  fountain  of  a  corrupt  heart  in  a  depraved 
habit  of  taking  bribes  to  pervert  justice."  And  this  may 
be  very  true.  His  confession,  too,  must  be  taken  with 
some  allowance  for  the  nature  of  the  case.  He  was  in  effect 
as  good  as  forbidden  to  make  any  formal  defence  to  the 
charge ;  and  perhaps  no  successful  defence  could  have 
been  made  against  the  technical  offence.  He  must  either 
make  a  defence,  or  confess  the  full  scope  of  the  charge,  the 
intent  and  guilt  included :  technically,  he  was  guilty,  if  the 
corrupt  intent  were  to  be  an  inference  of  law  from  the  facts 
admitted,  or  if  the  House  of  Lords  should  so  find,  sitting 
as  a  jury.  But  even  this  need  not  prevent  us  from  con- 
sidering the  real  nature  of  the  case,  nor  (in  reference  to 
his  character)  from  viewing  it  in  a  just  and  true  light. 
We  may  bear  in  mind,  also,  that  the  character  of  Lord 
Bacon  wTas  of  that  Christian  quality  as  to  be  loudest  of  all 
in  the  confession  of  his  own  sins. 

It  is  evident,  on  a  review  of  the  contemporaneous  his- 
tory, that  the  action  of  the  Commons  was  taken  mainly  in 
pursuance  of  the  general  measures  of  political  reform  in 
the  State,  which  had  been  previously  determined  on  ; 
while  on  the  part  of  the  immediate  and  prime  movers  in  this 
instance,  it  was  as  plainly  a  mere  intrigue,  and  a  base  plot 
and  contrivance,  to  create  a  vacancy  for  a  new  minion  of  the 
favorite.  The  knavish  insinuations  and  open  charges  of 
Churchill,  Cranfield,  and  Williams,  secretly  fomented  by 
Buckingham,  and  publicly  supported  by  the  vigorous  malig- 


&&6  REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES. 

nity  of  Coke,  his  old  enemy,  gave  the  movement  a  par- 
ticular direction  against  Bacon ;  and  upon  him  the  wall 
fell,  though  he  was  far  from  being  the  greatest  offender  in 
Israel.  "Whether  he  was  actually  constrained  by  the  power 
of  Buckingham  and  the  King  to  abandon  his  defence,  or 
not,  it  is  plain  he  saw  that  his  only  hope  was  in  the  favor 
of  the  King,  and  he  certainly  expected  that  the  King  would 
pardon  any  sentence  that  might  be  pronounced  upon  him, 
and  save  him  from  total  ruin.  Buckingham  controlled  the 
King,  and  Bacon  knew  it  very  well,  and  therefore  avoided 
as  much  as  possible  any  breach  with  him.  As  soon  as  the 
harpies  had  made  sure  of  his  office,  they  began  to  strip 
him  of  his  estates.  Buckingham  insisted  upon  having 
York  House.  At  first,  Bacon  positively  refused  to  part 
with  it :  "  York  House,"  he  said,  "  is  the  house  wherein  my 
father  died,  and  wherein  I  first  breathed ;  and  there  will  I 
yield  my  last  breath,  if  so  please  God,  and  the  King  will 
give  me  leave."  But  the  King  would  not  give  him  leave 
against  Buckingham,  and  York  House  had  to  go.  Buck- 
ingham was  so  incensed  at  his  refusal,  that  he  caused  him 
to  be  sent  immediately  to  the  Tower,  four  weeks  after  the 
sentence,  and  in  open  violation  of  the  King's  promise ; 
though  by  the  King's  own  order,  he  was  discharged  the 
same  day.1  Next,  they  demanded  Gorhambury,  with  its 
forests  and  gardens,  until  it  seemed  to  his  friend  Meautys 
that  they  had  such  a  word  as  "fleecing  "  2  in  their  vocabu- 
lary :  —  "I  will  not  be  stripped  of  my  feathers,"  roars  the 
lion  at  bay.  The  King  did  not  allow  him  to  be  made  quite 
a  beggar  :  he  gave  him  his  fine,  which,  it  seems,  barely  en- 
abled him  to  satisfy  his  creditors  and  make  a  will.  "  Thank 
God,"  says  the  fallen  Chancellor,  "  I  can  now  make  a  will." 
While  he  was  yet  determined  to  defend  himself  against  the 
charges,  and  after  the  wily  and  intriguing  Dean  Williams 
had  suggested  to  Buckingham  and  the  King  the  project  of 

1  Dixon's  Per.  Hist,  of  Lord  Bacon. 

2  Letter  to  Bacon. 


REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES.  587 

a  submission  and  full  pardon  for  Bacon  as  the  only  sacri- 
fice that  could  save  them,  being  summoned  to  an  inter- 
view with  the  King,  he  prepares  some  minutes  for  the  con- 
ference, in  which  he  says :  "  The  law  of  nature  teaches  me 
to  speak  in  my  own  defence.  With  respect  to  the  charge 
of  bribery,  I  am  as  innocent  as  any  born  upon  St.  Inno- 
cent's day :  I  never  had  bribe  or  reward  in  my  eye  or 
thought  when  pronouncing  sentence  or  order.  If,  however, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary,  the  King's  will  shall  be  obeyed. 
I  am  ready  to  make  an  oblation  of  myself  to  the  King,  in 
whose  hands  I  am  as  clay,  to  be  made  a  vessel  of  honour 
or  dishonour."  The  King  advised  (that  is,  commanded)  a 
submission,  and  gave  "  his  princely  word  he  would  then 
restore  him  again,"  if  the  Lords  "  in  their  honours  should 
not  be  sensible  of  his  merits."  Bacon  answered :  "  I 
see  my  approaching  ruin  ;  there  is  no  hope  of  mercy  in  a 
multitude,  if  I  do  not  plead  for  myself,  when  my  euemies 
are  to  give  fire.  Those  who  strike  at  your  Chancellor 
will  strike  at  your  crown."  But  he  acquiesced,  at  last, 
with  these  words :  M I  am  the  first ;  I  wish  I  may  be  the 
last  sacrifice."  1 

But  when  Coke,  at  the  head  of  the  Commons,  sounding 
the  trumpet  of  reform,  had  made  an  oblation  necessary, 
and  the  first  stroke  fell  upon  the  head  of  his  hated  rival ; 
when  Bacon  discovered  that  a  venal,  corrupt,  and  perfid- 
ious crew  of  upstart  minions,  Churchill,  Cranfield,  Dean 
Williams,  and  the  widow  Villiers,  following  in  the  slimy 
train  of  Buckingham,  and  conspiring  deeper  than  he  knew, 
or  could  imagine,  for  the  spoils  of  place  and  his  ruin,  had 
involved  him  and  the  King,  too,  in  the  inextricable  meshes 
of  an  invisible  net,  and  that  his  fall  was  inevitable ;  when 
he  saw  that  he  had 

"  stepp'd  into  the  law,  which  is  past  depth 
To  those  that,  without  heed,  do  plunge  into  it," 

and  found  himself  caught  in  the  fatal  trap,  and  the  sen- 

i  Life,  by  Montagu,  I.  xciii. 


588  REFORMATION  OF  ABUSES. 

tence  came  with  utter  ruin  to  his  fortunes,  for  which  he 
cared  less,  his  titles  of  honor  and  nobility  being  barely 
saved,  under  mercy  of  Buckingham,  with  the  help  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery, 
and  others  of  the  most  illustrious  peers,  together  with  the 
whole  bench  of  Bishops,  yet  with  some  loss  of  that  "  sweet 
odour  of  honour  and  reputation  throughout  the  world," 
which  he  prized  more,  "  honour,"  as  he  said  to  the  Lords, 
"  being  above  life,"  or  as  it  is  said,  elsewhere :  — 

"  The  purest  treasure  mortal  times  afford 
Is  spotless  reputation :  that  away, 
Men  are  but  guilded  loam  or  painted  clay. 
A  jewel  in  a  ten  times  barr'd  up  chest 
Is  a  bold  spirit  in  a  loyal  breast. 
Mine  honour  is  my  life ;  both  grow  in  one ; 
Take  honour  from  me,  and  my  life  is  done  " ; 

[Rich.  II.,  Act  I.  Sc.  1.] 

when  he  saw  the  dark  cloud  lowering  across  the  future 
ages,  casting  its  shadow  upon  his  credit,  name,  and  mem- 
ory, and  obscuring  his  light  to  unborn  generations ;  he  was 
overwhelmed  with  the  keenest  anguish.  He  appealed  to 
the  magnanimity  of  the  British  Senate  to  make  his  fault 
no  greater  than  it  really  was,  and  his  sentence  no  more 
than  was  "  for  reformation's  sake  fit "  ;  —  not  "  heavy  to 
my  ruin,  but  gracious,  and  mixed  with  mercy  " :  — 

"  0,  my  lords, 
As  you  are  great,  be  pitifully  good."  —  Tim.,  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 

When  the  committee  of  the  House  waited  upon  him  to 
know  if  his  submission  and  confession  were  genuine,  he 
answered  in  deep  distress :  u  My  Lords,  it  is  my  act, 
my  hand,  and  my  heart.  I  beseech  your  Lordships  to 
be  merciful  to  a  broken  reed."  Lord  Campbell  seems  to 
take  this  touching  humility  as  the  last  proof  of  baseness 
and  guilt:  —  is  there  any  wonder  that  his  distress  was  deep, 
and  his  affliction  great,  — 

"  Seeing  his  reputation  touch'd  to  death?  "  —  Tim.,  Act  III.  Sc.  5. 


PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET.  589 

Rather,  when  the  whole  matter  is  duly  weighed,  charitable 
minds  may  be  inclined  to  lend  an  ear  to  rare  Ben  Jonson, 
who  says  :  "  In  his  adversity,  I  ever  prayed  that  God  would 
give  him  strength,  for  greatness  he  could  not  want;  neither 
could  I  condole  in  a  word  or  syllable  for  him,  as  knowing 
no  accident  could  do  harm  to  virtue,  but  rather  help  to 
make  it  manifest :  "  — 

"  0  mighty  love !    Man  is  one  world 
And  hath  another  to  attend  him." 

All  men  see  the  world  without,  after  a  certain  fashion  ;  but 
each  man  only  can  see  his  own  world  within.  We  are 
accustomed  (safely  enough  in  general)  to  judge  the  soul  of 
another  by  the  relations  which  it  may  seem  to  sustain  to 
the  moving  world  of  things  without.  But  inasmuch  as  the 
best  soul  has  to  swim  on  the  bosom  of  the  stream,  it  may, 
in  spite  of  itself,  fall  into  the  strangest  apparent  relations  to 
the  whirl  of  things  that  float  together  upon  the  surface :  it 
is  still  possible  for  a  pure  soul  to  swim  unstained  in  very 
guilty  looking  company.  What  if  it  were  possible  for  a 
great  soul  to  be  able  to  administer  justice  to  a  school  of 
bribers !  A  certain  other,  for  doing  the  like  of  this,  was 
nailed  up  between  two  thieves  as  if  he  had  been  no  better 
than  they ;  for  to  the  nailors  he  appeared  to  steal  corn  on 
Sunday.  Temples  of  Jerusalem,  and  Ephesus,  and  St. 
Peter,  and  St.  Paul !  What  sums  have  not  been  expended 
in  attempting  to  bribe  the  Supreme  Judge  to  pass  in  goats 
among  the  sheep  !  So  much  may  be  permitted,  and  justice 
be  administered,  nevertheless,  at  "  the  top  of  judgment." 

§  2.    PHILOSOPHER   AND    POET. 

Shakespeare  has  long  been  considered  by  all  that  speak 
the  English  tongue,  and  by  the  learned  of  other  nations  like- 
wise, as  the  greatest  of  dramatic  poets.  The  ancients  had 
but  one  Homer :  the  moderns  have  but  one  Shakespeare. 
And  these  two  have  been  fitly  styled  "  the  Twin  Stars  of 
Poesy  "  in  all  the  world.    These  plays  have  kept  the  stage 


fc>90  PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET. 

better  than  any  other  for  nearly  three  centuries.  They 
have  been  translated  into  several  foreign  languages ;  a  vast 
amount  of  cx*itical  erudition  has  been  expended  upon  them  ; 
and  numerous  editions  have  been  printed,  and  countless 
numbers  of  copies  have  been  distributed,  generation  after 
generation,  increasing  in  a  kind  of  geometrical  progression, 
through  all  ranks  and  classes  of  society  from  the  metropoli- 
tan palace  to  the  frontier  cabin,  until  it  may  almost  be  said, 
that  if  there  be  anywhere  a  family  possessing  but  two  only 
books,  the  one  may  be  the  Bible,  but  the  other  is  sure  to  be 
Shakespeare. 

Nevertheless,  the  plays  have  been  understood  and  appre- 
ciated rather  according  to  existing  standards  of  judgment 
than  according  to  all  that  was  really  in  them.  In  general, 
our  English  minds  seem  to  have  been  aware  that  their  poet 
was  more  or  less  philosophical,  or  rather  that  he  was  a  kind 
of  universal  genius ;  but  that  he  was  a  Platonic  thinker,  a 
transcendental  metaphysician  and  philosopher,  an  idealist 
and  a  realist  all  in  one,  not  many  seem  to  have  discovered. 
Coleridge  certainly  had  some  inkling  of  this  fact,  and  to 
Carlyle,  it  stood  perfectly  clear,  that  Shakespeare  "  does  not 
look  at  a  thing,  but  into  it,  through  it ;  so  that  he  con- 
structively comprehends  it,  can  take  it  asunder,  and  put  it 
together  again ;  the  thing  melts,  as  it  were,  into  light  under 
his  eye,  and  anew  creates  itself  before  him.  That  is  to 
say,  he  is  a  Thinker  in  the  highest  of  all  senses  :  he  is  a 
Poet.  For  Goethe,  as  for  Shakespeare,  the  world  lies  all 
translucent,  all  fusible  we  might  call  it,  encircled  with 
Wonder  ;  the  Natural  in  reality  the  Supernatural,  for  to 
the  seer's  eyes  both  become  one." *  And  so  also  Gervinus 
concludes  upon  the  question  of  "  the  realistic  or  ideal  treat- 
ment," that  "  he  is  sometimes  the  one,  sometimes  the  other, 
but  in  reality  neither,  because  he  is  both  at  once."  2  Deep 
searching  criticism,  on  this  side  of  the  sea,  has  been  able 
to  sound  the  depths  and  scale  the  heights  of  the  Higher 

i  Essays,  III.  209.  2  Shakespeare  Coram.  (London,  1803),  II.  569. 


PHILOSOPHER  AND   POET.  591 

Philosophy  of  Bacon,  and  it  is  almost  equally  clear  that  it 
has  discovered  in  it  the  world-streaming  providence  of 
Shakespeare.  "  The  English  shrink  from  a  generalization," 
says  Emerson.  "  They  do  not  look  abroad  into  universality, 
or  they  draw  only  a  bucket-full  at  the  fountain  of  the  First 
Philosophy  for  their  occasion,  and  do  not  go  to  the  spring- 
head. Bacon,  who  said  this,  is  almost  unique  among  his 
countrymen  in  that  faculty,  at  least  among  the  prose-writers. 
Milton,  who  was  the  stair  or  high  table-land  to  let  down  the 
English  genius  from  the  summits  of  Shakespeare,  used  this 
privilege  sometimes  in  poetry,  more  rarely  in  prose.  For  a 
long  interval  afterwards,  it  is  not  found." 1  We  know  how 
Bacon  attained  to  these  heights ;  but  it  is  not  explained 
how  the  unlearned  William  Shakespeare  reached  these 
same  "  summits "  of  all  philosophy,  otherwise  than  by  a 
suggestion  of  "  the  specific  gravity "  of  inborn  genius. 
Have  we  any  evidence  outside  of  these  plays,  that  this 
"  dry  light "  of  nature  was  greater  in  William  Shakespeare 
than  in  Francis  Bacon  ?  In  Bacon,  as  in  the  plays,  we 
have  not  only  the  inborn  genius,  but  a  life  of  study,  knowl- 
edge, science,  philosophy,  art,  and  the  wealth  of  all  learn- 
ing. Are  these  things  to  be  counted  as  nothing  ?  Then 
we  may  as  well  abolish  the  universities,  burn  the  libraries, 
and  shut  up  the  schools,  as  of  no  use :  — 

"  Hang  up  philosophy : 
Unless  philosophy  can  make  a  Juliet, 
Displant  a  town,  reverse  a  Prince's  doom, 
It  helps  not,  it  prevails  not:  talk  no  more." 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  Act  III.  Sc.     3. 

For  the  most  part,  all  that  has  been  seen  in  Shakespeare 
has  been  considered  as  the  product  of  some  kind  of  natural 
genius  or  spontaneous  inspiration.  The  reason  has  been 
nearly  this,  that  since  Bacon,  if  Berkeley  be  excepted, 
England,  or  the  English  language,  has  never  had  a  phi- 
losophy at  all :  we  have  had  nothing  but  a  few  sciences  and 
a  theology.     Bacon's  Summary  Philosophy,  or  Philosophy 

l  English  Traits,  244. 


592  PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET. 

itself,  seems  to  have  fallen  still-born  from  his  delivery,  a 
dead  letter  to  our  English  mind.  It  was  not  grasped,  and 
the  existence  of  it  in  his  works  seems  to  have  been  for- 
gotten. No  English,  or  American,  philosopher  has  yet 
appeared  to  review,  expound,  and  complete  it,  in  any  sys- 
tematic manner :  this  work  has  been  left  to  those  who  are 
said  to  hold  dominion  of  the  air.  Some  there  have  been, 
doubtless,  as  capable  as  any  of  undertaking  to  give  a  com- 
plete systematic  statement  of  all  philosophy ;  but  they 
probably  knew  too  well  what  kind  of  an  undertaking  that 
would  be,  when  a  perfect  work  might  require  not  only  a 
divine  man,  but  a  book  as  large  as  the  Book  of  God's 
Works.  The  men  that  are  called  philosophers  among  us 
are  occupied  with  physical  science  only.  "What  Bacon  en- 
deavored to  re-organize,  and  constitute  anew,  as  methods 
and  instruments  for  obtaining  a  broader  and  surer  <l  foun- 
dation "  for  a  higher  metaphysical  philosophy,  they  appear 
to  have  mistaken  for  the  whole  of  science  and  the  sum  total 
of  all  certain  knowledge,  excepting  only  a  fantastical  kind 
of  traditional  supernatural  knowledge,  for  the  most  part, 
completely  ignoring  metaphysics ;  and,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  they  have  given  us  as  little  conception  of  a  phi- 
losophy of  the  universe,  and,  with  all  their  physical  science, 
have  had  as  little  to  give,  as  a  Humboldt's  Cosmos,  or  that 
prodigious  Frenchman,  M.  Auguste  Comte. 

Besides  a  physical  science  we  have  had  only  a  theology, 
taking  old  Hebrew  and  some  later  Greek  literature  for  all 
divine  revelation  ;  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  for  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe  ;  Usher's  chronology  for  an  account  of 
all  time  on  this  earth  ;  Adamic  genealogy  for  an  ethnology 
of  the  human  race  ;  Jesus  of  Nazareth  for  the  creator  of 
the  whole  world  and  sole  saviour  of  mankind ;  and  some 
five  or  six  fantastic  miracles  for  all  the  boundless  and  eter- 
nal wonders  of  the  creation.  These  old  ones  are  nearly 
worn  out,  and  are  fast  becoming  obsolete  :  indeed,  they  are 
already  well-nigh  extinct.     It  is  high  time  they  were  laid 


PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET.  593 

up  on  a  shelf,  and  labelled  to  be  studied  hereafter  as  fossils 
of  the  theological  kingdom  ;  and  preachers,  opening  their 
eyes,  should  cast  about  for  a  new  set,  at  least,  out  of  all  the 
universe  of  miracles  that  surround  them,  and  henceforth 
found  thier  preaching  on  them.  There  would  then  be 
much  less  trouble  about  faith,  and  infidelity  to  myths  and 
superstitions  might  become  fidelity  to  God  and  his  truth. 

And  so,  having  no  philosophy,  and  no  conception  of  the 
possibility  of  any,  and  nothing  to  give  the  name  to,  our 
English  mind  has  appropriated  the  word  as  a  superfluous 
synonym  for  physical  science,  and  scarcely  allowed  free 
scope  to  that ;  and  among  us,  the  Newtons,  Franklins, 
Faradays,  Brewsters,  and  Darwins,  are  called  philosophers, 
as  Hegel  said.  These  men  are  certainly  to  be  ranked 
among  the  master  minds  of  the  world  as  original  inventors 
and  discoverers  in  physics,  as  philosophical  observers  and 
excellent  writers  on  physical  science,  with  the  addition,  in 
some  instances,  of  a  considerable  sprinkling  of  orthodox 
theology,  and  in  some  others,  as  in  Newton,  the  younger 
Herschel,  Agassiz,  Peirce,  with  the  addition  of  not  a  few 
remarkable  deep-soundings  into  the  fundamental  depths 
of  things  and  the  hidden  mysteries  of  creation  ;  as  it  were, 
some  prophetic  flashes  of  the  most  exalted  intellect  across 
the  darkness  of  their  own  age  and  time  in  dim  anticipation 
of  a  coming  century ;  as  when  Newton  says,  "  Only  what- 
ever light  be,  I  would  suppose  it  consists  of  successive  rays 
differing  from  one  another  in  contingent  circumstances,  as 
bigness,  force,  or  vigor,  like  as  the  sands  of  the  shore,  the 
waves  of  the  sea,  the  faces  of  men,  and  all  other  natural 
things  of  the  same  kind  differ,  it  being  almost  impossible 
for  any  sort  of  things  to  be  formed  without  some  contingent 
variety."  And  again,  "  Every  soul  that  has  perception  is, 
though  in  different  times  and  in  different  organs  of  sense 
and  motion,  still  the  same  indivisible  person.  There  are 
given  successive  parts  in  duration,  co-existent  parts  in  space, 
but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  in  the  person  of  a  man, 
38 


594  PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET. 

or  his  thinking  principle  ;  and  much  less  can  they  he  found 
in  the  thinking  substance  of  God.  Every  man  so  far  as  he 
is  a  thing  that  has  perception,  is  one  and  the  same  man 
during  his  whole  life,  in  all  and  each  of  his  organs  of  sense. 
God  is  the  same  God,  always  and  everywhere.  He  is 
omnipresent  not  virtually  only,  but  also  substantially ;  for 
virtue  cannot  subsist  without  substance."  1  This  is  Berke- 
ley's philosophy  of  a  thinking  substance,  existing  as  reality, 
and  not  at  all  as  any  ideal  vision  of  a  mystical  dreamer. 
Auguste  Comte,  ignoring  theology  and  metaphysics  together, 
calls  his  huge  book  of  physical  science  a  "  Positive  Phi- 
losophy " :  it  is  indeed  positive  enough,  and  in  the  total 
upshot  as  unphilosophical  as  positive  ;  —  as  if  a  universe 
could  be  constituted  and  carried  on  by  mere  physics  and 
phrenologico-biology  on  a  basis  of  dead  substratum,  or  could 
be  conceived  to  go  of  itself  as  a  blind  perpetual-motion 
machine  !  But  how  shall  any  one,  not  having  eyes  to  see, 
be  able  to  see,  that  it  goes  only  as  the  power  of  thought 
could  make  it  go,  and  not  otherwise  ?  If  the  light  within 
you  be  dark,  how  great  is  that  darkness. 

Among  the  theologians,  we  have  had  a  class  of  writers, 
who  have  been  sometimes  called  metaphysicians,  but  who 
were,  in  truth,  merely  metaphysical  theologians,  swimming, 
like  Jean  Paul's  fish,  in  a  box,  and  the  box  tied  to  the 
shore  of  church  or  state  with  a  given  length  of  rope ;  or 
materialistic  anti-theologians,  and  in  either  case,  no  more 
metaphysicians  than  philosophers.  Of  the  one  sort  were 
Locke,  Reid,  Brown,  Stewart,  and  Hamilton ;  and  of  the 
other,  Hobbes,  Halley,  Hume,  Mill,  Lewes,  and  Harriet 
Martineau.  Not  one  of  either  sort  appears  ever  to  have 
been  able  to  cross  the  threshold  of  that  Higher  Philosophy, 
which  Bacon,  following  the  dim  light  of  Plato,  but  mainly 
by  the  help  of  his  own  Boanergic  genius,  endeavored  to 
erect  and  constitute  as  the  one  universal  science,  and  in 
which  he  was  followed,  in  their  own  way,  by  Berkeley  and 
i  Principia,  (ed.  Chittenden,  N.  Y.  1848,)  p.  505. 


PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET.  595 

Swedenborg.  After  these,  Kant  seems  to  have  been  the 
next  to  make  a  clear  breach  over  that  threshold,  when 
prying  off  into  the  palpable  obscure  of  the  previous  dark- 
ness, as  a  Vulcanian  miner  drifts  into  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  after  unknown  ores,  or  as  a  Columbus  launches  upon 
an  unexplored  ocean,  believing  with  such  as  Bacon  and  all 
high  philosophic  genius,  that  beyond  the  pillars  of  Hercules 
there  may  be  lands  yet  undiscovered,  he  began  to  make 
that  darkness  visible  to  some  few,  through  the  Transcen- 
dental ^Esthetic  of  Time  and  Space.  It  has  been  easier, 
since,  even  for  lesser  lights,  to  follow  and  enlarge  and  clear 
the  drift,  thus  roughly  cut  into  solid  darkness  by  the  life- 
labor  of  all  powerful  thought ;  and  hence  that  modern 
school  of  philosophy,  which  has  done  something  toward  a 
critical  exegesis  of  the  fundamental  and  eternal  laws  of 
thought,  the  true  nature  of  substance  or  matter,  a  true 
knowledge  of  cause  and  "  the  mode  of  that  thing  which  is 
uncaused,"  a  sound  and  rational  psychology,  and  some  more 
scientific,  intelligible,  and  satisfactory  account  of  the  con- 
stitution of  this  universe,  and  of  the  order  of  divine  prov- 
idence and  the  destiny  of  man  in  it :  —  in  fine,  a  Universal 
Philosophy. 

German  scholars  of  this  modern  school,  whether  special 
students  of  this  philosophy,  or  debtors  to  its  results  for 
their  ideas  and  methods,  have  been  filled  with  admiration 
of  the  super-eminent  genius  of  Shakespeare.  "  The  poetry 
of  Shakespeare,"  says  Frederick  Schlegel,  "  has  much  ac- 
cord with  the  German  mind."  Goethe,  despairing  to  excel 
him,  ranks  him  first  among  modern  poets,  and  honors 
Hamlet  with  a  place  in  the  Wilhelm  Meister  ;  and  Richter, 
no  less,  discovering  at  once  the  amazing  depth  of  his  phi- 
losophy, makes  him  rule  sovereign  in  the  heart  of  his 
Albano,  —  "  not  through  the  breathing  of  living  characters, 
but  by  lifting  him  up  out  of  the  loud  kingdom  of  earth  into 
the  silent  realm  of  infinity."  *  How  wonderful,  indeed,  is 
1  Titan,  by  Brooks,  I.  154. 


596  PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET. 

all  this !  Is  it,  then,  that  we  have  here  a  born  genius,  to 
whose  all-seeing  vision  schools  and  libraries,  sciences  and 
philosophies,  were  unnecessary,  —  were  an  idle  waste  of 
time,  forsooth  ?  —  wbose  marvellous  intuition  grasped  all 
the  past  and  saw  through  all  the  present  ?  whose  prophetic 
insight  spans  the  future  ages  as  they  roll  up,  measures  the 
highest  wave  of  the  modern  learning  and  philosophy,  and 
follows  backward  the  tide  of  civilization,  arts,  and  letters, 
to  the  very  borders  of  the  barbaric  lands  ?  —  before  whose 
almost  superhuman  power,  time  and  place  seem  to  vanish 
and  disappear,  as  if  it  had  become  with  him  *  an  everlasting 
Now  and  Here"?  or,  as  if  it  had  pleased  the  Divine 
Majesty  to  send  another  Messiah  upon  our  earth,  knowing 
all  past,  all  present,  and  all  future,  to  be  leader,  guide, 
and  second  Saviour  of  mankind  ?  What  greater  miracle 
need  be ! 

Being  translated  into  German,  Shakespeare  became  "  the 
father  of  German  literature,"  says  Emerson.  But  it  so 
happens,  that  the  parts  of  him,  which  have  been  more 
especially  quoted  as  the  basis  of  this  German  appreciation, 
are  precisely  those,  which  have  been  least  noticed  at  home, 
or  if  seen,  appreciated  on  quite  other  grounds.  Those  trans- 
parent characters,  which,  said  Goethe,  are  "  like  watches 
with  crystalline  plates  and  cases,"  where  the  whole  frame 
and  order  of  discovery  are  placed,  as  it  were  sub  oculos, 
under  the  very  eye,  and  those  most  pregnant  passages, 
which  are  written,  like  the  Faust,  or  the  Meister,  with  a 
double  aspect,  whether  because  it  was  then  dangerous  to 
write  otherwise,  or  because  the  highest  art  made  such 
writing  necessary  and  proper,  being  the  highest  wisdom  as 
well  as  that  true  poetry  which  requires  the  science  of 
sciences  and  "  the  purest  of  all  study  for  knowing  it," 
making  these  plays  magic  mirrors  like  "  the  universal 
world  "  itself,  in  which  any  looker  may  see  as  much  as  he 
is  able  to  see  and  no  more,  have  passed  in  the  general 
mind  for  little  more  than  ingenious  poetical  conceptions, 


PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET.  597 

powerful  strokes  of  stage  eloquence,  or  merely  fanciful 
turns  of  expression  ;  or  if,  sometimes,  anything  deeper  may 
have  been  half  discovered  in  them,  some  suspected  smack 
of  infidelity  may  have  thrown  the  trammelled  reader,  all  of 
a  sudden,  into  a  grim  silence  —  a  sort  of  moody  astonish- 
ment, —  very  much  as  if  he  had  accidentally  laid  his  hand 
upon  an  electric  eel ;  —  as  if  a  true  man  should  fear  to  be 
infidel  to  anything  but  God  and  the  eternal  truth  of  things, 
or  as  if  more  credence  were  due  to  a  traditional  mythology 
of  the  Egyptianized,  or  the  Grecianized,  Hebrews  than  to 
the  best  teachings  of  the  wisest  living  men  and  the  most  en- 
lightened  philosophy.  It  has  been  said,  that  the  "  Hamlet " 
was  not  discovered  to  be  anything  wonderful  till  within  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  In  truth,  these  new  wonders  of 
Shakespeare  are  precisely  the  parts,  qualities,  and  charac- 
teristics of  him,  wherein  the  higher  philosophy  of  Bacon  is 
displayed,  and  which  are  to  be  understood  and  compre- 
hended in  their  full  meaning  and  drift  by  those  only,  who 
stand  upon  the  same  high  cliff  and  platform  whereon  he 
stood  alone  of  all  his  contemporaries,  that  topmost  height 
and  narrow  strait,  "  where  one  but  goes  abreast "  in  an  age, 
and  almost  without  an  English  rival  down  to  our  time. 
German  scholars,  as  well  as  some  later  English,  by  the 
help  of  this  same  higher  philosophy,  in  the  new  Kantian 
instauration  of  it,  have  been  enabled  to  ascend  to  this 
elevated  platform  ;  and  being  there,  they  discover  the 
transcendent  genius  of  Shakespeare  in  the  philosophy, 
culture,  science,  and  true  art,  which  belonged  only  to  Bacon. 
And  therein  and  thereby  is  it  further  proven,  that  this 
"  our  Shakespeare  "  was  no  other  than  Francis  Bacon  him- 
self; and  William  Shakespeare  ceases  to  be  that  "unpar- 
elleled  mortal"  he  has  been  taken  for,  that  title  being 
justly  transferred  to  the  man  to  whom  it  more  properly 
pertains.  So,  for  the  most  part,  in  all  times,  has  the  phi- 
losopher been  robbed  of  his  glory.  We  worship  in  Jesus 
what  belongs  to  Plato ;  in  Shakespeare,  what  belongs  to 


196  PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET. 

Bacon ;  and  in  many  others,  what  belongs  to  the  real  phi- 
losopher, the  actual  teacher,  the  true  saviour,  and  to  Phi- 
losophy Herself. 

All  that  gives  peculiarity  and  preeminence  to  these  plays 
is  to  be  found  in  Bacon  ;  vast  comprehension,  the  profound- 
est  philosophic  depth,  the  subtle  discrimination  of  differences 
and  resemblances,  matured  wisdom,  vigor  and  splendor 
of  imagination,  accurate  observation  of  nature,  extensive 
knowledge  of  men  and  manners,  the  mighty  genius  and 
the  boundless  wit,  the  brevity  of  expression  and  pregnant 
weight  of  matter,  a  fine  aesthetic  appreciation  of  the  beauti- 
ful, the  classical  scholarship,  familiarity  with  law,  courts, 
and  legal  proceedings,  with  the  metaphysic  of  jurisprudence, 
with  statesmen  and  princes,  ladies  and  courtiers,  and  that 
proper  sense  (which  belonged  to  the  age)  of  the  dignity. 
sovereign  duties,  power  and  honor  of  the  throne  and  king, 
the  sovereign  power  in  the  State  ;  —  all  this,  and  more  than 
can  be  named,  belongs  to  both  writings,  and  therefore  to 
one  author.  Here  was  a  man  that  could  be  a  Shakespeare. 
Coleridge,  SchlegeL  Goethe,  Jean  Paul  Richter.  Carlyle, 
Emerson,  Delia  Bacon,  Gervinus.  and,  doubtless,  many 
more,  clearly  saw  that  the  real  Shakespeare  must  have 
been  such  a  man,  in  spite  of  all  the  biographies.  ■  Ask 
your  own  hearts,"  says  Coleridge,  u  ask  your  own  common 
sense,  to  conceive  the  possibility  of  this  man  being  .  .  .  the 
anomalous,  the  wild,  the  irregular  genius  of  our  daily  crit- 
icism !  What !  are  we  to  have  miracles  in  sport  ?  Or,  I 
speak  reverently,  does  God  choose  idiots  by  whom  to  con- 
vey divine  truths  to  man?"  x  And  yet,  even  Coleridge  failed 
to  discover,  that  ■  the  morning  star,  the  guide,  the  pioneer 
of  true  philosophy,"  was  not  William  Shakespeare,  but 
Francis  Bacon. 

The  last  and  most  conclusive  proof  of  all  is  that  general, 
inwrought,  and  all-pervading  identity,  which  is  to  be  found 
in  these  writings,  when  carefully  studied,  and  which,  when 
i  Notes  <M  Skakapean,  Worts,  IV.  56. 


PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET.  599 

it  is  looked  for  and  seen,  is  appreciated  and  convinces,  like 
the  character  of  a  handwriting,  by  an  indescribable  genuine- 
ness and  an  irresistible  force  of  evidence.  In  the  words 
of  A.  W.  Schlegel,  speaking  of  Shakespeare,  u  On  all  the 
stamp  of  his  mighty  spirit  is  impressed."  1  The  distin- 
guishing qualities  of  Bacon's  prose  style  are  precisely  those 
which  belong  to  the  poet,  namely,  breadth  of  thought,  depth 
of  insight,  weight  of  matter,  brevity,  force,  and  beauty  of 
expression,  brilliant  metaphor,  using  all  nature  as  a  symbol 
of  thought,  and  that  supreme  power  of  imagination  that  is 
necessary  to  make  him  an  artistic  creator,  adding  man  to 
the  universe ;  qualities,  which  mark  that  mind  only  which 
God  hath  framed  "as  a  mirrour  or  glass,  capable  of  the 
image  of  the  universal  world."  His  speeches  display  these 
qualities.  The  oratorical  style  of  that  day  seems  to  have 
been  more  close  and  weighty  than  in  our  times :  it  was  full 
of  strength  and  earnestness.  Lord  Coke  spoke  in  thunder- 
bolts, huge,  Cyclopean,  tremendous :  he  went  to  the  very 
pith  and  heart  of  the  matter,  at  once,  and  his  speech  was 
always  "  niidtum  in  parvo."  But  in  him,  it  was  vigor  with- 
out grace,  power  without  splendor,  or  beauty,  and  ability 
unillumined  by  the  divine  light  of  genius.  When  we  know 
that  Bacon  had  been  such  a  poet,  it  ceases  to  be  a  wonder 
that  he  was  such  an  orator  as  he  was.  The  mind  that  had 
been  conceiving  dramatic  speeches,  at  this  rate,  during  a 
period  of  thirty  years  or  more,  could  never  address  a  court, 
a  parliament,  or  a  king,  otherwise  than  in  the  language, 
style,  and  imagery  of  poetry.  In  short,  Bacon's  prose  is 
Shakespearean  poetry,  and  Shakespeare's  poetry  is  Baco- 
nian prose.  Nor  did  these  qualities  altogether  escape  the 
recognition  of  one,  who  had  an  eye  to  see,  an  ear  to  hear, 
and  a  soul  to  comprehend  :  says  Ben  Jonson,  B  There  hap- 
pened in  my  time  one  noble  speaker,  who  was  full  of 
gravity  in  his  speaking.  His  language,  where  he  could 
spare,  or  pass  by  a  jest,  was  nobly  censorious.  No  man  ever 
l  Lectures  on  Dram.  Lit.,  302. 


600  PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET. 

spoke  more  neatly,  more  pressly,  more  weightily,  or  suffered 
less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in  what  he  uttered.  No  mem- 
ber of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  his  own  graces.  His 
hearers  could  not  cough  or  look  aside  from  him  without 
loss.  He  commanded  where  he  spoke  and  had  his  judges 
angry  and  pleased  at  his  devotion.  No  man  had  their 
affections  more  in  his  power.  The  fear  of  every  man  who 
heard  him  was  lest  he  should  make  an  end."  And  again 
he  says,  "  My  conceit  of  his  person  was  never  increased 
toward  him  by  his  place  or  honors;  but  I  have  and  do 
reverence  him  for  the  greatness  that  was  only  proper  to 
himself,  in  that  he  seemed  to  me  ever  by  his  works  one  of 
the  greatest  men,  and  most  worthy  of  admiration  that  had 
been  in  many  ages."  Howell,  another  contemporary,  says 
of  him,  likewise,  that  "  he  was  the  eloquentest  that  was 
born  in  this  isle." 

What  manner  of  mam  then,  have  we  here  for  our  Shakes- 
peare ?  A  child  well  born,  a  highly  educated  youth,  a  pre- 
cocious manhood,  and  an  all-comprehending  intelligence  ; 
a  retired  and  most  diligent  student,  who  felt  that  he  was 
"  fitter  by  nature  to  hold  a  book  than  play  a  part,"  and 
whose  studies,  like  Plato's,  or  Cicero's,  ended  only  with  life ; 
an  original  thinker  always ;  a  curious  explorer  into  every 
branch,  and  a  master  in  nearly  all  parts,  of  human  learning 
and  knowledge ;  a  brilliant  essayist,  an  ingenious  critic,  a 
scientific  inventor,  a  subtle,  bold,  and  all-grasping  philos- 
opher ;  an  accurate  and  profound  legal  writer ;  a  leading 
orator  and  statesman,  a  counsellor  of  sovereigns  and  princes, 
a  director  in  the  affairs  of  nations,  and,  in  spite  of  all  faults, 
whether  his  own,  or  of  his  time,  or  of  servants  whose  rise 
was  his  fall,  ■  the  justest  Chancellor  that  had  been  in  the 
five  changes  since  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon's  time,''  and  though 
frail,  not  having  ■  the  fountain  of  a  corrupt  heart,''  but  being 
one  to  whose  known  virtue  u  no  accident  could  do  harm, 
but  rather  help  to  make  it  manifest "  ;  a  prodigious  wit,  a 
poetic  imaginator,  an  artistic  creator,  an  institutor  of  the 


PHILOSOPHER  AND  POET.  601 

art  of  arts  and  the  science  of  sciences ;  a  seer  into  the 
Immortal  Providence,  and  the  veritable  author  of  the 
Shakespeare  Drama  :  in  truth,  not  (as  Howell  supposed)  a 
rare  exception  to  the  fortune  of  an  orator,  a  lawyer,  and  a 
philosopher,  as  he  was,  but  true  still  to  "  the  fortune  of  all 
poets  commonly  to  die  beggars,"  dying  as  a  philosopher 
and  a  poet,  "  poor  out  of  a  contempt  of  the  pelf  of  fortune 
as  also  out  of  an  excess  of  generosity  " ;  —  his  life,  on  the 
whole,  and  to  the  last,  a  sacrifice  for  the  benefit  of  all 
science,  all  future  ages,  and  all  mankind.  Surely,  we 
may  exclaim  with  Coleridge,  not  without  amazement  still : 
"  Merciful,  wonder-making  Heaven  !  What  a  man  was 
this  Shakespeare !    Myriad-minded,  indeed,  he  was." 


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